In episode 342 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Olena Lukyanova.
Olena is a qualified therapist and the Director of her therapy practice, OL Psychotherapy and Consulting.
Olena had a desire to become a therapist from a very young age but growing up in the post-Soviet Union era in Ukraine, this wasn’t an option for her, so she studied economics at university and became an economist for many years.
She then moved to the United Arab Emirates and was living there 10 years ago when Ukraine was first invaded by Russia.
Whilst she was there, she set up a Ukrainian cultural club for fellow ex-pats and organised rehabilitation for wounded Ukrainian soldiers and former prisoners of war.
The more time she spent with them, the more she realised that the mental health support of these soldiers should also be a focus, and she began receiving positive feedback from the men and women she worked with about her listening and therapeutic skills.
She then moved to the UK in 2015, and in In March 2022, once the war in Ukraine expanded beyond the Donbass Oblasts, Olena applied to study psychotherapy in the UK at the Metanoia Institute, and she graduated in 2025.
In this episode we discuss her professional journey, her desire to become a therapist and the achievement of becoming one and the clients she has worked with from different nationalities, ethnicities and backgrounds.
We discuss the support she has given to fellow Ukrainian ex-pat clients in the context of the Ukraine war, and also why she doesn’t want to limit herself just to supporting these clients, as important a role as it is.
We then talk about how she’s built her therapy practice, transitioned into this new career, and how it’s made her get to know herself better.
For Olena’s mental health journey, we discuss her life through the lens of a group of revolutions or conflicts: the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Orange Revolution in 2004, the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2013/2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine first in 2014, and again in 2022.
We talk about her experience of childhood bullying in Ukraine for being a ‘different’ person and the environment of the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union, how the Maidan Revolution impacted her and her conception of herself as a Ukrainian and when Russia invaded Ukraine.
As always, #itsokaytovent
You can find out more about Olena and OL Psychotherapy and Consulting here.
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