Hennadii Hrybeniuk - Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Professor of the Department of Psychology of Activity in Special Conditions. National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine, Cherkasy (Ukraine)
ORCID 0000-0002-5053-8744
DOI - https://doi.org/10.52363/dcpp-2026.1.2
Keywords: mental states, maladaptation, extreme working conditions, military personnel, rescuers, post-crisis growth, recovery, personal and professional development, psychological resilience, stress resistance, psychotrauma, martial law.
The article reveals the results of a study of the peculiarities of adaptation of specialists to the risks of traumatizing their psyche. Military personnel and rescuers have to serve in war conditions. The risk of traumatizing the psyche is daily and significant. There are factors of war conditions, factors of destruction that cannot be avoided. There is a need to protect the psyche of military personnel and rescuers from maladaptation. Such protection is becoming an everyday task that urgently requires scientific and applied recommendations and management decisions regarding its content and organization.
Maladaptive states are revealed in the process of performing service and combat tasks and after trauma in the post-crisis growth of the personality.
A theoretical analysis was conducted, which revealed the conceptual field of "maladaptive states" of military personnel and rescuers. The content and scope of key concepts, their systemic structure were obtained. This corresponds to modern theoretical views and the latest practices of psychological support in military and rescuer units.
The boundaries of the content of intra-individual and externally conditioned mechanisms of maladaptive states were clarified. This applies to traumatization of military personnel and rescuers. Individual and collective-group consciousness received the boundaries of adaptation to the conditions of trauma, which are designated conceptually.
The analysis of the concept of "maladaptive state" revealed its essential connection with the adaptation descriptors and their content. The indicators are indicators of the resources of resilience and practical effectiveness of military personnel and rescuers in performing service and combat tasks and post-crisis growth of the personality in war conditions.
Types of maladaptive states of military personnel and rescuers are distinguished. Signs of tension in the process of their performance of assigned tasks are revealed.
Parameters and indicators of the construction of conceptual and operational models of the study of adaptation to trauma conditions are revealed.
The presented conclusions and generalizations require further scientific research. Comprehensive research work on the theoretically designated topic is necessary. There is a need to develop and test methods for diagnosing maladaptive states in personnel of the security and defense sector. There is a need for further development of conceptual and operational models of the specified phenomenon, which can become a separate direction of scientific research within the psychology of activity in special conditions.
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Date of initial submission of the article to the journal: 20.04.2026
Date of acceptance of the article for publication after peer review: 18.05.2026
Date of publication of the article: 31.05.2026
Publisher National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine, 2026
This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.en
How to citate: Hrybeniuk H. Maladaptive mental states of military personnel and rescue workers during combat task performance and post-crisis personal growth. Disaster and Crisis Psychology Problems. 1(11). 2026. Pp. 18–28. https://doi.org/10.52363/dcpp-2026.1.2
