Jungian Psychologist & International Psychotherapist (Ukraine–Germany)
Author | Speaker | Emotional Growth Mentor for Girls and Women
Viktoria Ratushnenko
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
— Carl Gustav Jung
Our roots don’t always grow in light. Some go deep into shadow — and it’s from there that the true strength to rise begins.
I was born in a small village in southern Ukraine, near a liman where the land met still water and sky. I was raised in the home of my grandmother, a postwoman, and my grandfather, a boatman. I grew up in a quiet, incomplete family — but one filled with dignity, endurance, and unspoken love. In that world, gestures often meant more than words.
From early childhood, I was a sensitive and observant girl with a rich inner life. I wasn’t just curious about the world — I was drawn to people, to their silences, to what they couldn’t say. I wanted to understand what lay beneath the surface of their actions and expressions.
At the age of eight, my family moved to a Bulgarian village in another part of Ukraine. It was an entirely different world — a new language, new customs, a new sense of belonging. I spent years learning not only to speak, but to listen in a new way. That experience awakened in me a capacity to adapt, to see nuance, and to connect beyond words.
Later in life, I came to know Kurdistan — not through blood, but through love. Through my husband and our children, Kurdish culture became a living part of my identity. It taught me about resilience, ancestral memory, and quiet strength.
America came much later — not as a dream, but as a necessity. I left my homeland not seeking opportunity but seeking safety. Migration was not a chapter — it was an upheaval. It forced me to grow new roots in unfamiliar soil, to let go of old identities, and to live through the silent weight of loss, grief, and reinvention.
It was through these crises — the unraveling of old certainties, the collapse of my previous profession, the quiet devastation of exile — that I came to psychology. Not as a career, but as a path. A return to meaning. I lived through many inner thresholds: the disorientation of foreignness, the vulnerability of illness, the invisibility of starting over, the pain of redefinition.
These experiences didn’t weaken me — they deepened my capacity to witness others in their pain, not with pity, but with presence.
My roots stretch across Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kurdistan, and now, America. These are not just places — they are stories of loss and learning, of rupture and restoration. They are the rings in the trunk of my inner tree.
And I’ve come to understand not all roots grow in sunlight. Some must sink into darkness to rise toward the sky.
That is why I believe: only those who have passed through their own inner hells can truly guide others toward their light.
Transformation. Education. Becoming. Inspiration
— a journey of inner discovery, growth, and the return to inner fire
My path to becoming a psychologist was anything but linear. It wasn’t a career choice — it was an inner calling. After completing medical school, I began to lose my vision, and my career as a dentist came to an abrupt end. I was left with a deep void — and one haunting question: Who am I, if I am no longer what I do?
In 2016, I traveled to India — a journey that became an existential turning point. For the first time, I allowed myself to slow down, look inward, and admit: I wasn’t just changing professions — I was being reborn from within. Upon returning, I enrolled in a graduate psychology program at the Odesa National University named after I. I. Mechnikov, where I earned my Master’s degree with distinction. My thesis focused on “The psychological aspects of adaptation in people with visual impairments” — a deeply personal and embodied subject, as my own vision loss had marked the boundary between my past and future self.
That marked the beginning of my professional path in psychology.
I completed the basic and master training in Positive Psychotherapy at the Wiesbaden Academy, defended case studies, and participated in international supervision groups. Later, I entered the field of Jungian analysis, completed the foundational level, and wrote my final paper on psychological trauma — a deep and symbolic exploration of wounding through the language of dreams, archetypes, and the body.
I am currently continuing my Jungian training and serve as an ambassador of Positive Psychotherapy in the United States, helping to build cultural and professional bridges as I share the method in a new environment.
I also trained in fairy tale therapy, and storywork became more than a method — it became a metaphor for the inner life itself. Dreams, myths, and symbolic images are now the language I most fluently speak.
For many years, I participated in international summer intensives in Bulgaria — deep spaces for self-discovery, group process, and profound transformation. These experiences shaped me as a practitioner and as a human being.
Each stage of my education was more than a course — it was a threshold into the depth of the human soul. With my first clients, I walked through separation, grief, depression, and the rebuilding of boundaries. I discovered that what moves me is not pathology — but potential. Not the symptom — but the symbol.
Since then, my entire professional and personal journey has been devoted to one thing: helping people uncover their inner potential. Not fixing. Not normalizing. But guiding them into a meeting with their most authentic self.
My inspiration comes from dreams, archetypes, client stories, literature and mythology, a child’s honest gaze, Jung’s precise words, and the fragile silence between them.
I am not a licensed psychologist or psychotherapist in the United States and do not provide psychological or therapeutic services under U.S. law.
My work here is rooted in the role of a guide, a source of inspiration, and a companion in inner exploration.
I draw from my background as a Jungian psychologist (Ukraine) and a certified psychotherapist in the method of Positive Psychotherapy to share what has become both my path and my purpose.
My education is ongoing.
My becoming is still unfolding.
My inspiration — is life itself.
“A person becomes a stranger to herself when the border no longer separates but becomes internal.”
— Julia Kristeva
In 2022, when the war began in Ukraine, my family left home.
Our first destination was Ireland — a country of rain, restraint, and gentle silence.
It didn’t become home, but it became something else: a space where I didn’t have to survive, only breathe.
I will always be deeply grateful to Ireland — not for giving me answers, but for giving me pause without shame.
Later that year, we arrived in the United States.
America didn’t embrace us — but it gave me something I never expected: a wide, empty space in which I could stop being someone… and begin becoming myself.
Migration is not geography.
It’s the moment you no longer recognize your own voice.
It’s when home becomes memory, and you become the echo of who you used to be.
It’s when language, body, profession, faith, even habits — no longer work.
And you must learn everything anew, including yourself.
This is not a story of displacement.
It’s the experience of an internal fracture — a border that no longer lies between countries but runs through the soul.
It doesn’t ask for pity. It asks for presence. For language. For deep attention.
That’s when I began to write.
About migrant children who lose their sense of origin.
About women who hold their families together while forgetting who they are.
About bodies that scream when the voice is gone.
About dreams, which are often the first to speak the truth.
About pain that refuses explanation — but welcomes symbol.
I don’t offer answers. I listen.
I create spaces where people can begin to feel alive again — even when everything familiar has fallen away.
I write to gather scattered internal homelands.
The Migrant Within is not a concept.
It’s not a role.
It’s a memory etched into the body.
A state of being I have lived — and one that millions now carry quietly.
It is not a story of loss.
It is a story of returning inward.
Viktoria Solace Method
— a path shaped by story, symbol, and lived experience
I never set out to create a “method.”
What has taken shape over time is a living process, born from inner journeys, shared spaces with others, fairy tales, dreams, migration, loss, and the quiet act of returning to myself.
I call it the Viktoria Solace Method — not as a system, but as a path I’ve walked, and one I now walk alongside others.
It’s not a formula.
It’s a woven field of images, rhythms, questions — still unfolding.
Everything I offer is grounded in:
Professional and legal note
I am not a licensed psychologist or psychotherapist in the United States.
My work within the Viktoria Solace Method is not clinical or medical in nature.
I offer author-led workshops, creative masterclasses, learning spaces, and symbolic practices designed for personal reflection, inner exploration, and reconnection with the self.
I am actively pursuing professional training in the U.S., with the goal of completing all required education, clinical hours, and supervision to obtain licensure in the future.
This is a long, serious, and deeply respected path — one I take with full awareness and commitment.
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This is not a method for “fixing.”
It is not a technique for rewriting who you are.
It is a space to remember what has always been with you — beneath the pain, the rush, the survival.
I don’t offer answers.
I simply walk beside you, sharing what I’ve come to know through story, silence, symbol, and presence.
My Family
— my reality, my path, my inner school
“The heaviest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent.”
— Carl Gustav Jung
My family is not an idealized image.
Not a story for inspiration.
It is my living field of growth — my grounding, and my most personal path of transformation.
I’ve been married for many years. We have three children.
Together, we’ve moved across countries and identities.
We’ve lived through migration, inner and outer crises, redefined roles, lost what once anchored us — and built something new.
In Positive Psychotherapy, we speak of the four life spheres: the body, achievement, relationships, and meaning.
And in a family, these spheres don’t remain theory — they collide, test, and unfold in real time.
From a Jungian perspective, the family is a space where we meet our shadow, our unconscious images, and ancient archetypes.
There is no hiding here.
You either get lost — or you grow.
I don’t share my family’s stories.
But I can say this with honesty:
Everything I know about pain, love, attachment, and patience — I first learned here, within the circle of my family.
Occasional letters with reflections, symbols, dreams, and gentle reminders to stay close to your inner world.
