Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 27 – A group of Russian psychologists has launched a project, “The Quiet Room” (t.me/tikhayakomnata) to provide free counseling and other assistance to activists, human rights defenders, journalists and all others whose actions put them at risk of being subject to political persecution in Putin’s Russia.
The Horizontal Russia portal spoke with one of the psychologists involved. The latter spoke on condition of anonymity both to protect herself and to protect those who have turned to her and others in the group for assistance (semnasem.org/articles/2024/03/27/eto-ochen-strashno-ponimat-chto-vse-v-tvoih-rukah).
She says that the psychologists in her group provide four to six counseling sessions for free to all those who are suffering stress or other forms of distress because of the problems they have with the authorities, a group that has increased dramatically in number since the expanded invasion of Ukraine began.
The group’s goal is to help those in this situation recover a sense of agency, a sense that they can continue to act rather than be paralyzed because they no longer have someone else to act as their guide. This is a frightening thing, but it is key to the formation and functioning of a free society.
The anonymous psychologist did not provide any statistics on the number of people who have turned to The Quiet Room so far; but she indicated that the demand for such psychological services in the Russian Federation is both large and growing.
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