Ukraine

Khrystyna Shukal

Pronouns: She/Her

Region: Ukraine

I am a psychologist, project manager, and Head of the NGO "From Pain to Freedom", where I develop rehabilitation and recovery programs for Ukrainian veterans, former prisoners of war, and their families.

My work with nature-based approaches has grown through organizing and facilitating therapeutic retreats in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Between 2023 and 2025, I led five retreats for veterans and their families, supporting approximately 150 people. I combine time in nature with art therapy, resource-based practices, cultural traditions, reflection, and community connection, working alongside mental health professionals and international partners.

I was drawn to nature-based therapy because I have seen how deeply nature can support recovery. The mountains can offer space to slow down, breathe, reconnect with the body, and experience a sense of safety and belonging. For people living with the consequences of war and prolonged stress, these simple experiences can be deeply meaningful.

I believe nature and adventure-based therapies have an important place in Ukraine’s recovery. They can complement psychological and rehabilitation services while creating opportunities for resilience, connection, and renewed purpose.

As a representative for Ukraine, I would like to help develop this field by connecting Ukrainian practitioners with international knowledge, research, and professional communities, while also sharing the experience and perspectives emerging from Ukraine. I hope to contribute to a community where nature-based work is practiced with care, professionalism, and respect for the people it serves.

For me, this work is ultimately about creating safe spaces where people can heal, reconnect with their inner strength, and find a way forward — From Pain to Freedom!

Veronika Stefanovych

Veronika (she/her) — Psychologist and Crisis Counsellor, representing Ukraine

As a practitioner I work at the intersection of individual practice, organizational work and community development. I am interested in exploring how our inner worlds are connected with the environments we inhabit — and what becomes possible when psychological exploration moves beyond the traditional therapy room.

Nature, body and creativity have been an important thread in both my personal and professional journey. I use walk-and-talk counselling and outdoor sessions tailored to clients’ exploration of specific themes, including existential experiences, life transitions&perception of the self, dreamwork.

I also do nature- and creativity-based interventions with groups, hosting outdoor art and writing classes and facilitating nature-based experiments in a forest preschool in Lviv.

For me nature is not simply a therapeutic setting or a backdrop. It can become an active relational context — offering an experience of belonging to a world larger than the individual while simultaneously supporting autonomy, agency and competence. I am particularly interested in the intersections of nature, embodiment, symbolism and creativity, and in forms of lived experience that cannot be fully accessed through words alone. My professional interests are informed by deep ecology, ecological identity and more-than-human perspectives.

In Ukraine, I see Nature-Based and Adventure Therapy as an opportunity for community building: creating spaces where people with different experiences of war can encounter one another, reconnect with their bodies and with the land, and develop shared lived experience.