ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the therapeutic effects of brief group interactive art therapy with patients being treated in a specialized psychotherapy unit for war veterans. War veterans establish a significant clinical group with which art therapy can be used together with other medical and paramedical interventions to reduce stress-related symptoms and to improve the social adaptation of ex-servicemen. In the Russian Federation many combat veterans of the military campaigns in different regions of the country and abroad suffer from mental disorders as a result of their service. Combat veterans have been identified with having high levels of the emotional tension and instability, low impulse control, difficulties in interpersonal relations, distorted reactions to others, ambivalent and inadequate self-perception, and difficulties in securing existential meaning. The hospital is administered by the Ministry of Public Health and offers complex treatment for the war veterans.
