Resilient reintegration as a result of psychotherapy: a grounded theory analysis of clients’ experiences

ABSTRACT

Although most psychotherapists would agree that psychotherapy helps clients build their psychological resilience, there are very few data on how best to conceptualize resilience enhancement and which are the specific resilience factors that are developed or reinforced in psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to explore resilience development through psychotherapy. Semi-structured qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 clients who had experienced a major loss or adversity and have sought psychotherapy in order to cope with its impact. Data were analyzed using grounded theory. Our analysis of the data resulted in a tentative framework which depicts resilience enhancement through psychotherapy as reconstruction of meaning. The changes that clients experienced as a result of psychotherapy were conceptualized as resilient reintegration and comprised six areas: (1) authentic self-esteem, (2) psychological empowerment, (3) reconstructed meaning, (4) change in emotional experiencing, (5) acting differently, and (6) relating differently. The findings suggest that psychotherapy promoted a wide range of outcomes which have been consistently linked to higher resilience in the literature. Furthermore, our findings showed that the psychotherapeutic outcome for these participants may be conceptualized in terms of positive transformation and resilience enhancement.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychotherapy
• resilience
• meaning reconstruction
• loss
• adversity
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Agathi Lakioti

Agathi Lakioti is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece. Her research interests include psychotherapy process and outcome, resilience, professional development issues, and positive psychology constructs and instruments.

Anastassios Stalikas

Anastassios Stalikas is a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece. His research interests include psychotherapy process and outcome, positive psychology constructs and instruments, methodology and statistics.