Nataliia Makarchuk, Liliia Kulinenko, Olga Vasylieva, Olga Zhurkova, Liudmila Makarchuk and Elena Mozoliuk.
Abstract: Objective: The main tasks of this study are as follows: to substantiate the interdependence of perversion as a form of violence and the human ego in the context of hybrid warfare; to prove the existence of perversion as a form of violence against a person in the context of hybrid warfare in Ukraine (personal perversion); to describe the alteration of ego states as conditions for effective human self-regulatory activity in the context of hybrid warfare.
Background: Hybrid warfare, including the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, as a phenomenon, has been widely studied both abroad and in Ukraine. However, there are very few works on the psychological impact of such a war. There are currently no works on disorders of human self-regulatory activity in the context of hybrid warfare, which makes the study unique and relevant.
Method: The study used a combination of various methods, in particular, structural-clinical interviews, psychological counseling and therapeutic meetings, data analysis. Data were collected for 2014-2020. The total number of participants was 55 people aged 25 to 63 years, with 70% female and 30% male.
Results: The latent tension and denial of hybrid warfare result in a gradual increase of neurotization, which is in 95% of cases passes into a neurosis state with concomitant manifestations of symptoms. There is also a deterioration in psychological well-being and phylogenetic disorders (erogenous dysfunction in men, uncontrolled neurotic masturbation in women). Disorders of the mental level of self-regulation determine the manifestation of the mental content of perversion, in which perversion takes on the character of intrapersonal functioning.
Conclusion: The combination of disorders of the physical, mental and personal levels of the self-regulatory activity of the psyche increased perverse tendencies in social and political life, which provoked a high rate of psychotization of the entire society and an increase in deficit characterological manifestations of each individual.
Keywords: Self-regulatory activity, psyche, hybrid warfare, perversion, neurosis.
The modern world is drowning in violence, whose forms of manifestation have long ceased to be its direct expression, having acquired a latent nature. This may be confirmed by the application of violent measures for the regulation of political and social conflicts under the slogan “to the rescue” (recent events in Syria, Ukraine, etc.), which have become the fundamental value of a modern person with power, a perverse value. Thus, violence is affirmed in perversion.
Perversion is impossible without the subject’s active position because it consists of any action aimed at harming another person, up to their destruction, under the slogan of transforming the world of causing good. Consequently, modern perversion is violence, shaped into group interaction, uniting with militaristic ambitions, and being concretized in order to get control and capture.
What is it that makes a person not only be the bearer of destructive aggression but also produce it as a condition for achieving omnipotence and power, that is, become a pervert? This question cannot be answered as perversion is always inherent in people, and it is their development that keeps perversion within the limits of age, being a very important operational component of their physical and mental constitution.
The fundamental system of perversion’s functioning is the human ego, for which perversion either becomes a mental structure or is strengthened in the sexual sphere as clinical manifestations. It is also known that the problem of perversion of the human ego is not resolved in the context of the self-regulatory activity of the psyche and requires more attention.
The human ego is always related to two realities: the objective reality, represented by the laws and patterns of the surrounding world, and the subjective, internal reality. The interaction of these two realities in subordination with the human need sphere ensures the ego’s activity as a fundamental condition for any form of self-regulation. The influence of difficult life situations, stresses, and conflicts determines the format of the ego’s activity and, consequently, the person’s orientation to the objective world. This also affects the implementation of the human ego’s main goal – changing the surrounding world and its subordination. After all, the nature of the influence of circumstances provokes the ego to use means against the world with the simultaneous fear of losing this world and the fear of sheer loneliness, which is the content of human perversion [1].
An important fact is that the self-regulatory activity of modern people undergoes certain changes, which is correspondingly reflected in the functionality of their ego. In this context, an important role is played by the ego’s defenses as the mental regulation mechanisms of its activity. One of the main psychic mechanisms of the ego’s defenses, sublimation, has undergone a dramatic change. That, perhaps, is one of the fundamental factors in the formation of perversion [2].
Perversion-induced problems as a focus of mental activity and aggression have always been relevant. As known, the demonstration of strength, which reflects the strategy of aggression as a form of self-affirmation in social communications, leads rather to an increase in tension in the social space than to its regulation. Of particular importance is structured aggression, which in the modern context often takes the form of military confrontation, military conflict, and various forms of violence. The aggravation of radical positions, terrorist actions, and military activities in certain regions fully substantiate the idea about the intensification of destructively directed aggression and the almost complete failure of humanitarian missions to resolve it. As a result, the study of the subject’s ego states as a form of the psyche’s self-regulatory activity in hybrid warfare is one of the possibilities for finding optimal ways to work with perverse ambitions, structuring aggression and expanding the content of the ego’s resource in hybrid warfare.
The term “hybrid warfare” appeared in 2005 and was used to describe the strategy employed by Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War [3]. In 2014, this form of war was discussed by those who used this format in relation to Ukraine. This refers to the Russian methodology in interpreting events in Ukraine. Russian political scientists have been actively using the term “hybrid warfare” since 2014, when, in connection with the Ukrainian events, there was a sharp aggravation of Russia’s relations with the Western countries. Hybrid warfare is a type of hostile action in which the aggressor does not resort to a classic military invasion but suppresses the opponent by using a combination of covert operations, sabotage, cyber warfare, as well as providing support to the rebels operating on the enemy’s territory [4]. Until that time, the main term used to describe the hostile actions of the United States and NATO towards Russia was “information war” combined with various methods of destabilizing the existing power from the arsenal of both the Cold War and the “orange revolutions” of the early 21st century. It is the interpretation of the state of unresolved and indefinite military confrontation between the two sides, reaching the level of war as hybrid warfare, that is most effective because it indicates the nature of the violence used, which within the framework of this study is defined as perversion. Thus, Ukraine’s hybrid warfare can be defined as an open military confrontation, which is implemented in the form of perversion and has a protracted nature. Here, perversion is a strategy of conducting an ideological war against the opponent, using technologies to destroy consciousness and determine the high functionality of psychosis in maintaining this ideology among the population.
The prerequisites for studying the problem of the subject’s self-regulatory activity in hybrid warfare were analytical and statistical materials from the UN and NATO, as well as research works on the subject’s self- regulatory activity and the analytical, problem-symbolic design of personal self-regulation [4-7].
An important component of the research problem is the statement of the conduct of operations on Ukraine’s territory from 2014 to the present time. For a long time, the nature of these operations was not determined by a definition that would reflect the specifics of their functioning. In order to avoid tautology and exaggeration of the phenomenon of open violence in Ukraine and to give the definition of this phenomenon, one should take into account the statistical data of the influence of this phenomenon on the lives of civilians. The UN Human Rights Office estimates the total number of victims of the conflict in Ukraine (from April 14, 2014, to October 31, 2019) at 41,000-44,000, including 13,000-13,200 dead (3,345 civilians, including 298 killed on board Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, approximately 4,100 Ukrainian military personnel, and about 12,500-13,500 members of armed groups) [7].
Based on this source, civilian casualties account for 25-26% of the total. This percentage has changed over time. According to UN reports, in 2014, the approximate share of civilians in the total number of deaths due to the conflict was 33-34% (one civilian killed per two military men killed), while in 2019, it was estimated at 4-5%: one civilian killed due to artillery shelling, shelling from light weapons and small arms and mine incidents per 20-23 military men killed due to artillery shelling, shelling from light weapons, small arms, and mine incidents.
Thus, in combination with various modifications of violence against civilians and the use of civilians as a means of implementing this combination, perversion points to the characterological manifestation of hybrid warfare in Ukraine.
Currently, there are no comprehensive studies considering perversion as a form of violence against a person in the context of hybrid warfare and analyzing in detail its effect on the psyche. Individual papers are addressing the specific components of this study. For example, F. Hoffman [8] analyzed the concept of hybrid warfare from the perspective of political science, without describing its psychological aspects in any way.
As a separate category of research, there is a group of works devoted to the issues of human psychological self-regulation. This topic is covered in the works of W. Miller and J. Brown [11], M. Diab, K. Peltonen, S.R. Qouta, E. Palosaari, and R.-L. Punamaki [12]. The emotional states of the individual during wars and conflicts are considered in the works of V. Cheung- Blunden and B. Blunden [13], E. Halperin, K. Sharvit, and J. Gross [14], D. Horowitz [15].
There is a series of works devoted to the hybrid war between Ukraine and Russia. These are the studies of M. Doroshko and V. Balyuk [16], V. Misko [17], S.P. Seheda and V.P. Shevchuk [18], Y. Magda [19], G. Perepelitsa [20]. However, they consider hybrid warfare from the perspective of history, political science, and international relations. Simultaneously, there are very few works analyzing the psychological impact on the parties to the conflict (namely, on human self- regulatory activity). Among them are the articles by L. Smola [21], O. Mateyuk [22], I. Yuzov and P. Patsek [23]. It should be noted that, along with the psychological aspect, they also consider the informational component. This shows that the topic has been little studied, and its relevance is unusually high since the conflict between the aforementioned countries has not yet been resolved.
Consequently, the purpose of the present study is to establish the influence of perversion on the subject’s self-regulatory activity in the experience of structured violence using the example of hybrid warfare in Ukraine in 2014-2020. The tasks of the study are as follows: to substantiate the interdependence of perversion as a form of violence and the human ego (social content) in the context of hybrid warfare; to prove the existence of perversion as a form of violence against a person in the context of hybrid warfare in Ukraine (personal perversion); to describe the alteration of ego states as conditions for effective human self-regulatory activity in the context of hybrid warfare (mental content).
The experimental sample of the study consisted of people aged 25-63 years. The total number of participants was 55 people. The gender ratio of the experimental sample was 70:30, with 70% female and 30% male. The experiment was carried out from 2014 to 2020.
The clinical criterion for differentiating the sample was the content of the request for psychological assistance. Two groups of subjects were conditionally identified.
The first group consisted of subjects who had a request for psychotherapy due to a sharply deteriorating general state of psychological well-being, which was reflected in the spectrum of neurotically conditioned symptoms that they were aware of. The main difficulty for these subjects consisted of tension and anxiety about their mental state. The number of subjects in the group was n=20.
The second group consisted of subjects who did not have a conscious content of the request. They indicated the presence of tension, acute manifestations of anxiety, panic, fear, and often unauthorized aggression, but they did not recognize this as a problem. Their appeal for assistance was in the nature of a requirement for a psychotherapist to eliminate some of the difficulties of communication, increased conflict interaction, or negative reactions to everyday life. The number of subjects in the group was n=35.
The study used empirical methods (observation, analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, scientific reflection), the author’s structural-clinical interview algorithm, as well as psychological counseling and therapeutic meetings. The experiment was conducted in the form of psychological counseling, coaching, and psychotherapy, implemented within the framework of an interdisciplinary approach. The study presented the results of the subjects who agreed to them being described. Due to the specifics of the chosen type of research, statistical analysis using mathematical research methods was excluded.
The empirical part of the study involved the introduction of variables. The first variable is the structure of the human ego, which, within the framework of this study, is presented as a structure with complex connections along the vertical of development and the horizontal of functioning with concomitant transitions in the form of age crises and stress factors. The second variable is the human constitution, which is measured by the formation state of self-regulatory activity at the level of body and psyche physiology. The third variable is the dynamic characteristic of the ego, which creates the prerequisites for the emergence and functionality of ego states – alternation. The fourth variable is hybrid warfare, which has a specific characteristic in the conditions of Ukraine.
The study’s feature was the use of the author’s structural-clinical interview algorithm, which has been tested in psychological counseling and psychotherapy since 2006. The initial condition of the interview is the use of analytical discourse in determining the causal relationship of the complaint addressed by the client and the feedback theory developed in the cybernetic approach. The second condition is the therapist’s close attention to the client’s description of mental processes, states, reactions within the boundaries of a retrospective analysis of this description. An important condition of the algorithm is the use of speech and language calls formed by clients in their lives, which make it possible to consider their actual and potential subjective resources in translating a request into a problem. Another condition for conducting a structural- clinical interview is the nature of the client’s prognostic activity, which is revealed in the ability to develop further ways to solve it.
The algorithm is conditionally differentiated into five implementation strategies.
The first strategy – identifying the client’s current mental state – involves determining the nature of the client’s life, the situation or situations that accompany him or her in the near future (where time is the length of the event, the mental situation and the client’s interpretation of this situation, which made him or her appeal for assistance). The purpose of this strategy is to describe a complaint, identify a true request for psychological assistance and describe the phenomenon of mental activity, the appearance of which violated the usual lifestyle and the solution of which cannot be found within the framework of the standard form of the client’s self-regulatory activity. This strategy presumably determines the presence of a deficient mental state, a clinical disorder with/or pathogenic consequences. This may also refer to a violation of an irreversible nature, which is the subject of psychiatry.
The second strategy – identifying the problem – makes it possible to reveal those manifestations of the psyche that provoked the client to appeal for psychological assistance, as well as to establish what developments can be used to address these manifestations in the theory and practice of psychological assistance. The purpose of this strategy is to clarify and define the conditional boundaries of the problem, search for and approve the dominant area of work with this phenomenon – psychology/psychotherapy and/or medicine/psychiatry.
The third strategy – forecasting benefits and secondary deviations – consists of forecasting the development of the studied phenomenon of the psyche if it is not subject to the appropriate influence (psychotherapy, psychocorrection). These are prognostic examinations of the refusal to address this mental phenomenon and a statement of possible secondary violations in the self-regulatory activity of the client’s psyche.
The fourth strategy – forecasting alternatives in addressing the problem – specifies the forecasts of self-regulation functionality when studying the considered phenomenon in the framework of psychotherapy and/or psychocorrection. It reveals the prognostic results of addressing the deficit phenomenon of the self-regulatory activity of the psyche, possible risks, and alternative results.
The fifth strategy – stating the content of work with the problem – indicates the existence of hypothetical ways to overcome the deficit phenomenon of the self- regulatory activity of the psyche and alternative strategies to address it. The main thing in this strategy is the definition of the psychotherapist’s subjective readiness to work with the problem.
The use of a structural-clinical interview made it possible to investigate the variables established in the experiment and describe the specifics of human self- regulatory activity in the context of hybrid warfare. The first and third variables were revealed by establishing the ego’s development stage (the vertical curve of development) and the ego’s formed states, lability, and mobility, which made it possible to designate the horizontal curve of the quality of its functioning. In addition, the structural-clinical interview took into account the information provided by the client about the state of his or her physical health and the attitude to the current physiological state, which indicates the formation state of physiological and mental selfregulation. The study of a person’s attitude to the current functioning of society and the state in the context of hybrid warfare allowed confirming the fourth variable.
The indicators of measuring the functioning of the ego were the testing of reality and the presence of disturbances in the functioning of the ego, studied at the levels of ego-bodily sensations and mental activity
Taking into account the supposed mental structures of clients who most of all appealed for psychological assistance, the structural-clinical interview made it possible to identify and ascertain the functional levels of the self-regulatory activity of the psyche: physical – the state of coordinated physical and motor activities; mental – dominant mental states, reactive formations, the ability to test reality, the degree of the ego splitting; personal – strategies for responding to and overcoming critical and difficult life situations, the ability to manage one’s own life, the formation state of critical thinking and the selectivity of consciousness; social – the ability to preserve social positions and statuses in the context of hybrid warfare.
The identification of the most common ego strategies in the search for the meanings of hybrid warfare was no less important. It is the ability to establish an attitude towards hybrid warfare as a phenomenon of public and personal life in which people live for a long time that is the independent variable determining the result of the entire study. Thus, each individual subject undergoes changes in ego states, which will ensure the adaptation of mental activities to the categorically changed life circumstances. Unfortunately, the prognostic result, in this case, is the establishment of the perverse nature of human interaction in conditions of total uncertainty, which is carried by the very essence of hybrid warfare.
The combination of these factors made it possible to determine the degree of people’s involvement in perversion. The psychological interpretation of the definition of hybrid warfare, in the methodology of this study, consists in determining it as a socio- psychological perversion, using structured violence in the form of ideological propaganda (of various nature) and information warfare up to the physical elimination of a person under the auspices of saving marginal groups from segregation in their home territory.
The following results were obtained in the following periods.
The year 2014 is the beginning of the hybrid war in Ukraine. The appeal for psychological assistance remained in the dynamics of the previous years, 2012 and 2013. Women appealed for assistance more often than men, with the ratio being 80:20. Women’s complaints, which constitute a part of the total 80%, were about an indefinite state of tension, accompanied by physical dysregulation in the form of conversion symptoms.
In most cases, when asked about their actual physical well-being, which was the content of the first strategy of the structural-clinical interview algorithm, clients complained about:
The subjects of the first group were in psychotherapy, and their reactions to the outbreak of the hybrid war were adequate to the nature of the ongoing events. Due to the fact that some information about the occupation of Crimea was disseminated and, at the same time, its acuteness was reduced by the outbreak of hostilities in the Donbas, the subjects of the first group did not have a worsening of their actual state, they believed and expected that this misunderstanding would quickly end.
The entire sample of the second group of clients underwent a medical examination, which revealed no disorders of organic genesis. This allowed us to confirm the origin of physical dysregulation in the form of conversion, with the described manifestations having the nature of conversion symptoms. Among men, 18% have similar conversion manifestations.
However, the causes of physical dysregulation in the form of conversion symptoms in men and women are different. Women openly expressed their panic fear regarding the actual description of their life situation. Moreover, they clearly distinguished between situations of personal life, professional activity, any form of communication, and the existence of social tension, which was confirmed by reports on television about those killed in the war zone. Only 20% of the surveyed women experienced conscious stress about the possible consequences of hostilities for their lives. They declared that this was a war and would never end and expressed subjectively grounded internal forecasts, the most dreadful of which were assumptions about large-scale military actions that could begin at any moment in the territory with which they ethnically and mentally identify themselves. The very word ‘war’ aroused an acute manifestation of the tension of unknown genesis. Some women pointed out anxiety, while the majority talked about tension in the entire body.
While women are afraid of the very word ‘war’, the surveyed men (about 40%) experience a conversion due to their unwillingness to perform military duties,
Thus, the entire sample of subjects showed a disorder of the general physically conditioned self- regulatory activity. However, the subjects of the first group were more active in discussing the ongoing events and forming their attitudes towards them, which was manifested in the ability to reflect on these events. Their physical condition was relatively intact. In the second group, there was a tendency to the formation of persistent physical dysregulation against the background of general stress in the form of neurotic states, among which panic states in women and hypochondriac manifestations in men were supported by conversion symptoms. Consequently, the year 2014 was characterized by the fixation of strong sensations at the level of the body and the attempts of subjects in any way to avoid being aware of what was happening at the level of mental perception. It remains an undeniable fact that the alteration of ego states varied within the boundaries of the experience of acute panic attacks, conversion hysterical symptoms, and hypochondriac manifestations.
In the subjects of the first group, there was an increase in tension associated with the awareness of what was happening and an attempt to form an attitude not to the military conflict but to the assessment of these events. The subjects showed a refusal to understand what was happening and a peculiar unwillingness to penetrate somehow the events that were already more actively declared in the media, that is, the hybrid war. The subjects of both groups showed an increase in physical dysregulation symptoms. Besides, the second group sample was actively expanding due to the exacerbation of the hybrid war, which led to an expansion of age indicators.
The experience of hybrid warfare in 2015 was somewhat altered. While in 2014, men and women mainly aged over 45 years appealed for assistance with physical dysregulation symptoms, in 2015, people of both genders aged 30 years began to appeal for assistance with symptoms of acute panic manifestations. Both men and women complained of acute panic conditions with conversion symptoms, which they did not associate in any way with military actions. The actual situation of the war began to increasingly be ousted from consciousness, and only fragments of loss in the field caused an exacerbation of the psychotic character in almost all subjects. People stopped reacting to the word ‘war’, trying to devalue its influence on their lives.
This can be confirmed by the following indicators. Representatives of the second group, men and women in a ratio of 40:60, had an almost identical spectrum of complaints: deterioration of mood, tone, general physical condition, family relations, difficulties in selfdetermination in professional and labor activities, in relations with friends and acquaintances. There was a kind of disregard for the issue of hybrid warfare, avoiding the consumption of information content (television), and the acute neglect of ideological manipulations in patriotism. Only 20% of men and 10% of women provided financial help to the army or volunteered. Consequently, there was a further disruption of physical regulation without any confirmed organic disruption.
Another important fact is that disorders of the mental level of self-regulation were observed in the subjects of the second group in the sphere of their phylogenetic functioning (sexual activity). In this regard, 65% of men and 30% of women reported a loss of sexual desire and, as a result, a significant decrease in the desire to realize it. Against this background, they pointed to an increase in conflict in partnerships and an increased desire to masturbate as a form of getting rid of the tension, which they were constantly feeling. Among women aged 30 years, 85% were engaged in masturbation, of which 30% with watching hard porn. In this context, it is important to point out that the sublimation of sexual desire acquires a pathological character because masturbation and porn are used as a reinforced sexual perversion, aimed at releasing the tension of a neurotic nature since this tension is associated with mental activity rather than with sexual desire. Consequently, masturbation did not lead to any discharge but only weakened the tension with a further increase in the desire to masturbate. For some clients, this desire reached 20 times a day. Regarding men, in this case, two disorders were observed. In 30% of men, erotic dysfunction was observed in the form of the impossibility to complete sexual intercourse in a standard way, or there was a general loss of sexual attraction and desire for women. In addition, 20% of men experienced increased masturbation using porn sites and indirect sexual interactions that were extremely perverse. Cheating against this background was noted among only 10% of clients.
It can be stated that the alteration of ego states was characterized at the level of mental self-regulation by the damage to the erogenous component, which is aimed at ensuring the qualitative interaction of body sensations and psyche perception. This indicates an intensification of the ego’s neurotic activity – neurosis. The ego’s neurotic state is characterized by a disorder of physical and mental self-regulation in the form of a loss of sexual potency and the appearance of intensified sexual perverse symptoms in the form of neurotic masturbation in women and erotic dysfunction with a simultaneous increase in masturbatory actions in men. All these tendencies were characteristic of the subjects of the second group.
The subjects of the first group showed a decrease in physical dysregulation. The mental response to the ongoing events in the country either gave in to the discussion at psychotherapeutic meetings, or there was an attempt to adapt to what was happening through the least resistance, that is, the lack of interest in what was happening. Only 10% of the subjects of the first group demonstrated a stronger civic position and stronger patriotic intentions in the form of active volunteer activities. The state of these clients at the physical and mental level of self-regulatory activity was significantly worse than that of the rest of this group.
In 2016-2018, there was an increase in neurotization and its manifestations in symptoms of a disorder of the level of personal self-regulation in 85% of the entire sample of the second group. These symptoms often ranged from alienation and a desire for loneliness to excessive anxiety about the isolation that clients find themselves in (30% of women and 60% of men). Many people begin to change their professional activities while having no answer to the question of what is the subject of their professional activities. There is a circulation of love intrigues and betrayals with a rigid rejection of established family traditions and partnerships developed over the years and an increase in the divorce rate.
The positive fact is the tendency to a decrease in tension regarding the still active hybrid warfare. There is some adaptation to its conditions, and most of the subjects began to feel conscious anxiety, which significantly increased the possibilities of psychological assistance in working with these phenomena. The qualitative criteria for age indicators in the second group during this period are 60:40, where 60% are people aged 30-40 years, with 60% women and 40% men. The prerequisites for this are the strengthening of the state’s position at the international level and a clearer statement of what exactly is happening, i.e., it is hybrid warfare that is being stated, as opposed to a military conflict, a civil conflict, or a terrorist operation. This statement led to the classification of society by the criterion of patriotism and nationalism. There are also radical positions starting to appear in assessing what is happening. However, against this constructive background of changes, the tragedy of lives lost in the war reinforces the social context of perversion in the form of an intolerant attitude towards those who have a different assessment of hybrid warfare. The information war is intensifying, and the destructive tension within society is growing.
Clients’ complaints circulate in the descriptive positions of apathy, melancholy, lack of desires and aspirations, and more and more of them being about lost meanings. Men begin to complain of panic attacks and secondary disorders in the form of decreased activity. Women are increasingly absorbed in professional aspirations, as well as in various forms of escape from reality. Society wants to change. Total psychological fatigue more and more covers mental activity and disables society. Hybrid warfare reaches its peak – people are tired of the war and begin to deny it. Against the background of this destructive nature of the circulation of personal self-regulation, fundamental changes begin to take place in the social life of society, associated with the extraordinary choice of the political elite.
The subjects of the first group were more puzzled by the issues of psychotherapy and showed inner constancy and tolerance to those aggressive actions that intensified during this period. Their physical and mental self-regulation was determined by the activity of personal self-regulation, which included the position and attitude to what was happening. These subjects were not involved in the dynamics and severity of the events associated with the hybrid war and showed great perplexity about the forecast of business relationships and outdoor activities. Their neurotic state came to relative stability. However, those who actively realized themselves in volunteer activities began to experience apathy, disappointment, and some melancholy, which indicated the loss of the source of self-regulatory activity at the physical, mental, and social levels.
The period 2019-2020 is characterized by an increase in appeals for psychological assistance as well as a sharp increase in the rate of clients’ complaints about neurotic manifestations, namely, disorders of self-regulatory activity in the form of conversion symptoms, panic, and phobic disorders, hypochondria, apathy, melancholy, and depression.
An increase in the level of anxiety became the most basic troubling symptom due to growing uncertainty, the causes of which were not identified by the clients themselves. Perversion was more and more actively manifested in ignoring the existence of hybrid warfare; 25% of clients showed disgust at the mention of hybrid warfare. The loss of fear of the war and some “privatization” of the content of the war were observed, and people themselves became part of its reality, without realizing it. They became passive in expressing ideas related to overcoming hybrid warfare. Almost 95% of clients avoided addressing the issue of hybrid warfare in communication.
The subjects of the first group showed slight disregard for the hybrid war situation. Moreover, 70% of the surveyed (50% of women and 20% of men) were focused on existing opportunities to use visa-free travel in various forms of tourism, labor emigration, buying real estate, and moving to more prosperous countries. 80% of the surveyed in the first group distanced themselves from the problems of hybrid warfare and often hid their preferences. It can be stated that the clients of the first group were involved in the therapeutic study of their current state and attempts to regulate these states precisely in a psychotherapeutic format. However, their detachment and weak civil position, especially in the aggravation of hostilities, indicate a perverse assessment of the reality in which they lived, namely, indifference and detachment from the problems of the state and society.
The obtained results of the study indicate the dynamics of changes in self-regulatory activity in both the first and second groups. The dynamics and nature of this activity are also conditioned by the duration of the hybrid war. It can be stated that self-regulatory activity in the context of hybrid warfare is ensured by the safety of the ego and determined by the actual state of the psyche, the ability to regulate oneself at the physical, mental, personal, and social levels. It has been established that the more conscious the request for psychological assistance, the ability to subjectively assess one’s current state and identify symptoms of self-regulatory activity disorders, and the readiness to receive high-quality psychological support, the more consciously a person relates to the processes of hybrid warfare and strives to take the position of a subject of civil activity. There were 10% of such subjects in the first group and 5% in the second group.
It has also been determined that the lower the level of awareness of one’s own actual state and the more immersion in symptoms of apathy, melancholy, and a negative assessment of reality, the more these clients are exposed to the influence of perversion on their consciousness and the destabilization of their self- regulatory activity. This symptomatology was active in the process of working with the subjects of the first (75% of women and 40% of men) and second (95% of women and 80% of men) groups. It has been found that the long-term effects of the hybrid war on the subject’s life activity include neurotic states, disorders of phylogenetic functioning, and the formation of a spectrum of symptoms leading to alienation and negative introversion (45% of women and 30% of men in the first group; 60% of women and 55% of men in the second group).
It has been revealed that the most critical in the neurotic state functioning is identifying a person with an aggressor and strengthening oneself as a perverse subject, in which the personal level of self-regulation is totally affected and distorted (70% of the surveyed in the first group and 90% in the second group).
The hybrid war contributes to the symptomatology of functional disorders of the physical (conversion symptoms – 70% of the surveyed in the first group and 85% in the second group), mental (neurosis – 90% of the surveyed in the first group and 95% in the second group; secondary mental disorders – 56% of the surveyed in the first group and 75% in the second group), and social (justification for the aggressor’s actions and attempts to accept his position as true – 45% of the surveyed in the first group and 47% in the second group) levels of self-regulatory activity. The most difficult thing in psychotherapeutic work is the disorder of the personal self-regulation level, in which perversion becomes a way of the functioning and construction of life activity by the subject and manifests itself in detachment from the course of the hybrid war and tolerance to the aggressor (10% of the surveyed in the first group and 50% in the second group).
Therefore, it has been established that the self- regulatory activity of the psyche determines the response and adaptation of an individual to the actual situation of life. It has been proved that the peculiarities of the construction and functionality of self-regulatory activity at the personal and social level determine the social content of perversion in the context of hybrid warfare. In this regard, with the full observance of the external signs of individuals’ adaptation and functionality to the conditions of hybrid warfare, there is a specific perception of themselves as a component of this war with a simultaneous denial of its influence on their lives.
The combination of the mental level of selfregulation determines structured violence, distorted by ideology, against the person himself or herself, who accepts passive functioning in hybrid warfare and denies the presence of an opponent in this war. The latent tension and denial of this war resulted in a gradually increasing neurotization, which in 95% of cases passes into a state of neurosis with concomitant manifestations of symptoms. There is also a deterioration in psychological well-being and phylogenetic disorders (erogenous dysfunction in men, uncontrolled neurotic masturbation in women). Disorders of the mental level of self-regulation determine the manifestation of the mental content of perversion, in which perversion takes on the character of intrapersonal functioning. It is this aspect that constitutes the source and purpose of the ideology of hybrid warfare. The person becomes the bearer of the ideas of hybrid warfare unconsciously, declaring the aggressor’s values.
Thus, the combination of disorders of the physical, mental and personal levels of the self-regulatory activity of the psyche increased perverse tendencies in social and political life, which provoked a high rate of psychotization of the entire society and an increase in deficit characterological manifestations of each individual. The purpose of hybrid warfare has been fully realized. People who are its technological weapon lost their current interest in what was happening under the influence of massive information attacks and became indifferent to the real acute situation. The results of the activities of volunteer movements, support for war heroes and their families, and the formation of public opinion about national interests in the conditions of hybrid warfare were less often presented in the information space. People began to “forget” about the danger of the war and became a part of it. They did not have the need to resist the war; they began to live with it and get a drive from extremely destructive messages and slogans.
The results of this study can be useful for psychological and psychotherapeutic specialists since they will allow them to form a more accurate understanding of the impact of hybrid warfare on the human psyche and self-regulatory activity, as well as to trace the perverse influence of such wars. In turn, understanding these processes will make it possible to provide more effective assistance to people faced with disorders of self-regulatory activity due to the conduct of hybrid wars in the place of their residence.
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