Det var jobbigt och det var bra - Fem klienters upplevelser av psykoterapi

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to illuminate clients’ experiences of psychotherapy. Semi structured interviews were carried out with five clients between the ages of 22 and 45 who had previously been in psychotherapy at the student clinic at the department of psychology at Lund University. The focus of the interviews was clients’ experience of psychotherapy, clients’ experience of themselves in psychotherapy and the clients’ experience of the psychotherapist. The recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and the parts that were of relevance for the purpose of the study were extracted from the text. In the next step five principal themes were elaborated from the text using Thematic Analysis (TA): Meaningfulness, A forum of my own, The therapeutic relationship, Psychotherapy as a process, A student as a psychotherapist. The narratives of the informants differed in many ways, but also shared many aspects. For example, experiences of psychotherapy were a hard and a satisfying process; experiences of oneself in psychotherapy mainly concerned a development of agency; experiences of the psychotherapist concerned the approach as guiding and validating. Other important aspects of client experiences of psychotherapy were change through insights and acceptance, that psychotherapy helped to create meaning and also gave the clients a forum of their own.