Abstract
Prolonged stress, uncertainty, losses, and the necessity of continuous psychological adaptation accompany the full-scale war in Ukraine. Under such conditions, particular importance is attached to the study of internal personal resources that ensure resilience, preservation of meaning orientation, and the ability to cope with crisis circumstances. One such resource may be existential fulfilment, an integral indicator of the realisation of fundamental personal motivations. Purpose. To investigate the relationship between existential fulfilment and resilience among Ukrainians under wartime conditions. Methods. The study involved 113 respondents aged 18 to 70 years. The Test of Existential Motivations (TEM) and a resilience scale were used. Descriptive statistics, comparative analysis, and Spearman’s correlation analysis were applied to the data. Results. A moderately high level of existential fulfilment was identified in the sample. The highest indicators were found for fundamental value and meaning in life, whereas fundamental trust and self-worth appeared more vulnerable. A clear tendency toward increasing existential indicators with age was recorded. Resilience was positively and statistically significantly associated with all fundamental motivations (ρ = 0.51–0.57; p < .001). Conclusions. Existential fulfilment serves as an important resource of psychological adaptation and resilience under wartime conditions. Resilience should be considered not only as the ability to withstand stress, but also as a manifestation of a deeper personal capacity to preserve inner consent, values, and meaning in crisis circumstances.
Keywords: existential fulfilment, resilience, war, adaptation, fundamental motivations.
Date of receipt of the article: 23 November 2025
Date of acceptance for publication: 20 February 2026
Date of publication: 28 February 2026
References
Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59(1), 20–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20
Connor, K. M., & Davidson, J. R. T. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18(2), 76–82. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.10113
Eckhardt, P., & Längle, A. (2001). Skalen zur Erfassung existenzieller Motivation, des Selbstwerts und des Sinnerlebens (TEM). Existenzanalyse, 18(1), 35–39. https://www.laengle.info/userfile/doc/TEM-Artikel--EA_2001-1.pdf
Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s search for meaning. Washington Square Press.
Kaplunenko, Y. (2025). Personalne buttia yak ekzystentsiina opora osobystosti u kryzovykh umovakh [Personal being as an existential support of personality in crisis conditions]. Kyivskyi zhurnal suchasnoi psykholohii ta psykhoterapii, 10, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.48020/mppj.2025.02.07
Kaplunenko, Y. (2025). Ekzystentsiini chynnyky zhyttiestiikosti ukraintsiv v umovakh voiennoi nevyznachenosti [Existential factors of resilience of Ukrainians under conditions of wartime uncertainty]. Orhanizatsiina psykholohiia. Ekonomichna psykholohiia, 4(37), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.31108/2.2025.4.37.2
Kaplunenko, Y. (2025, April 23). Study the hardiness of Ukrainians in conditions of war-related uncertainty (Pilot, 2025). OSF Preprints. https://osf.io/r7tp8
Längle, A. (2013). Lehrbuch der Existenzanalyse. Facultas.
Maddi, S. R. (2002). The story of hardiness: Twenty years of theorising, research, and practice. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 54(3), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/1061-4087.54.3.173
Maksymenko, S. D. (2006). Heneza zdiisnennia osobystosti [Genesis of personality realisation]. Kyiv: KMM.
Maksymenko, S. D. (2013). Osobystist u vymiri zhyttievoho shliakhu [Personality in the dimension of life path]. Psykholohiia i suspilstvo, 4, 7–18.
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227
May, R. (1983). The discovery of being: Writings in existential psychology. W. W. Norton & Company
Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301
Southwick, S. M., Bonanno, G. A., Masten, A. S., Panter-Brick, C., & Yehuda, R. (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: Interdisciplinary perspectives. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5(1), 25338. https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338
Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01
Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(2), 320–333. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.320
Wong, P. T. P. (2010). Meaning therapy: An integrative and positive existential psychotherapy. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 40(2), 85–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-009-9132-6
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yaryna Yu. Kaplunenko