COMPREHENSIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VULNERABLE CATEGORIES OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS

Abstract

The article presents a number of psychological and social problems that arise in vulnerable groups of the population (persons with disability, children, large families, elderly people) among internally displaced persons. The possible psychological consequences of forced migration to another region of the country are considered. The complex of problems which arise as a result of influence of the new social environment and host communities is presented. However, it has been proved that personality problems of the refugees and forced displaced persons from among the vulnerable categories in general psychological aspect comprehensively in the scientific and methodological literature were not fully considered.

In the article are considered the problems that especially the vulnerable categories (disabled persons, children, large families and elderly people) among the forced displaced persons particularly affected by the situation of stress  associated with departure from the places of residence, violation of stability and the usual state of life, loss of breadwinners, friends, parental care.

It has been determined that a large part of people with disability face significant barriers in the realization of their rights, and most of them are forced to stay permanently at home or in a closed system of temporary residence places. For people with cognitive impairment, moving from the usual environment can enhance functional dependence and inadequate behavior.

Children are psychologically very sensitive to traumatic situations. The difficult situation provokes them to feel discomfort, decrease in social activity and self-esteem, increase of anxiety and aggressiveness, negative attitude towards others.

Large families are faced with such important issues as the problem of employing parents, legal issues (often families do not have information about what rights they have), as well as the problem of society’s attitude to them.
Large families are often regarded as “social dependents”, although in practice they have very low privileges.

The unpredictability and lack of control in the new environment at the moment of the move forces elderly people feel more stressful about the moving.