On 22–23 July, the Health and Resilience Network held a specialised training in Lviv for military chaplains entitled “Serving Amid Pain: The Trauma of War and Resources for Chaplain Resilience.”
The programme brought together military chaplains who serve alongside service members on the front line. Participants gained up-to-date knowledge about the psychological consequences of war and approaches to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), moral injury, professional burnout, and secondary traumatisation among people whose work is to help others endure and remain resilient.
The training was delivered by a team of experts from the Health and Resilience Network, including Dr Harold Kudler, an internationally recognised expert in veterans’ mental health, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, and a long-standing adviser to U.S. government institutions on PTSD and support for military personnel. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, President of the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, and Chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Veterans Initiative. For many years, he held a senior leadership position within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
A separate training module focused on Stress First Aid (SFA), a model developed by the U.S. National Center for PTSD and implemented by the Center for Traumatic Stress, Resilience and Recovery at the U.S. healthcare network Northwell Health. The approach helps identify early signs of psychological exhaustion, strengthen the resilience of professionals in helping roles, and prevent the development of more severe mental health conditions.
The need for this knowledge remains exceptionally high. According to a Gradus Research study conducted in July 2026, 80% of Ukrainians are working under chronic stress and are close to burnout. Military chaplains face even greater risks, as they work daily with people who have experienced bereavement, combat stress, injury, or captivity. Preserving chaplains’ own psychological resilience is therefore essential to ensuring effective support for service members.
The training forms part of the work of the Health and Resilience Network, which introduces international practices in psychological support for professionals working in wartime conditions in Ukraine.
A military chaplain is often the first person approached after the loss of a fellow soldier, release from captivity, or a traumatic combat experience. Chaplains must therefore have modern tools for recognising psychological trauma and protecting themselves from professional burnout. Ukraine currently has more than 1,200 military chaplains, around 700 of whom serve on the front line.
Nataliia Toropova, Head of the Health and Resilience Network, said that over the past two years the organisation had trained more than 300 frontline military chaplains, doctors, and psychologists: “The approach we are currently using was developed for members of the U.S. Armed Forces, medical personnel, and emergency responders. Its key feature is that it makes it possible to identify signs of psychological exhaustion before clinical PTSD or severe burnout develops. For a country that has been living through a full-scale war for several years, this has become an element of professional safety.”
Harold Kudler, who has spent more than 40 years advancing evidence-based approaches to the treatment of psychological trauma, the restoration of mental health, and support for military personnel and veterans, emphasised that psychological trauma does not end when the fighting stops. His experience of supporting thousands of former service members shows that one of the most effective ways to strengthen societal resilience after war is to support those who support others: military chaplains, doctors, volunteers, and psychologists.
