International Center
for Mental Health
and Human Rights

Dignity ~  Capacity ~ Resilience

Welcome to the International Center For Mental Health and Human Rights (ICMHHR). Our mission is to strengthen and preserve human rights, resilience, and dignity in wounded communities through culturally sensitive and innovative mental health and resiliency training programs designed in partnership with local, community-based organizations in the US and internationally.

Our integrative approach brings together emerging neuroscience research and mindfulness-based, compassion-focused intervention while honoring traditional pathways of medicine, culture, and contemplative practice existing within each community.

The International Institute for
Trauma Studies

A collaboration between the State Pedagogical University in Vinnytsia, Ukraine and the International Center for Mental Health and Human Rights

Our Mission

The mission of The International Institute for Trauma Studies in the Graduate School of Psychology and Social Work at the State Pedagogical University in Vinnytsia, Ukraine is to provide essential online clinical training. We offer an online certification program and continuing education — at the intersection of contemporary psychoanalysis and traumatology —  to graduate students and licensed clinicians across Ukraine, on the frontlines, on the ground, and in the diaspora. We provide psychosocial support and expert training for Ukrainian clinicians who will be carrying the weight of the psychological and spiritual burden of this war for decades to come. Our clinical and educational focus includes combat trauma, communal trauma,
and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in individual and group treatment. In just five months, we have met and surpassed our initial target goals.

Participant Reflections

The program has become vital to Ukrainian graduate students and the clinical community. Here are some of their personal reflections of its psychological and spiritual impact.

well-Our Progress

With initial funding of $20,000, we have been able to develop and teach curriculum, provide live and document English/Ukrainian translation, and secure expert USA, Central European and Ukrainian faculty for six core courses:

1) Griefwork and Modern Analytic Group Psychotherapy;
2) Working with Parents and Children;
3) Clinical Supervision;
4) Contemplative-Based Trauma and ResilienceTraining;
5) Combat Trauma: In Individual and Group Treatment; and
6) Introduction to Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy.

Classes 4-6  and our lecture series are open to the wider Ukrainian clinical community, which includes military and school psychologists. We have trained 120 graduate students and clinicians. Our Luminary Lecture Series reaches between 120-150 graduate students and clinicians monthly.

We have been blessed by the generosity of extraordinary colleagues and an international guest faculty consisting of psychologists, group therapists, contemporary psychoanalysts, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists. Each has expressed a feeling of privilege to provide “in-kind” donations of expertise. A groundswell of support is growing within Ukraine and beyond. We are supported by our Ukrainian faculty, the Dean and Rector at the University in Vinnytsia, the Ukrainian Department of Education, APPU (Association of Psychologists and Psychoanalysts of Ukraine), UPRA (Ukrainian Psychedelic Research Association),  the Regional Governor, and key United Nations representatives. The Mayors of Vinnystsia and Boulder, Colorado are now exploring a sister-city exchange. We are on Madame Zelenska’s radar, the nation’s strongest ally in mental health.

Exponential Growth

We are now negotiating with interregional councils serving the Vinnystia and the Zhytomyr communities to provide school districts with IITS trained psychologists to better serve traumatized children. We have been providing counseling services with Ukrainian refugee families in Poland through the Zustrich Foundation. IITS faculty are working with VetSpace, an NGO that serves over 200 veterans and military family members. The Vinnytsia Regional Information and Resource Center for Veterans and Military Families, serving more than sixty military families, has reached out for clinical support. We have grown exponentially, even on a shoestring budget. Our success also signals the awareness of the growing budgetary need to meet the ongoing costs of expansion. We have prevailed in our proof of concept!

With additional designated funding we have been able to plan the opening of a new outpatient clinic housed at the University and affiliated with the Medical Center to deliver direct mental health care to Ukrainian families and combatants beginning September 2024. The IITS Family Clinic will provide online and in-person group and individual counseling, as well as hands-on clinical training for graduate students and clinicians to more skillfully treat and prevent the long-term devastating impacts from the often invisible wounds of war.

Finally, our US Executive Director, Gaea Logan, delivered the well-received plenary speech on the second anniversary of Russia’ s invasion (24/2/2024) for the Association of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts of Ukraine. The title was “Dreaming into Being: A Story of Community Psychoanalysis in Ukraine.”