Anna HUYSSE-GAYTANDJIEVA & Ivanka BONTCHEVA
Abstract
The aim of this study is to bring more understanding to the problems that immigrants face and to develop a therapeutic approach based on Positive Psychotherapy (PP). Three groups of immigrants were formed, based on the main reasons why people migrate: work, contact and future. By the means of qualitative analysis, the problematic aspects of these groups were highlighted. The developed therapeutic approach is presented by going through the process of psychological intervention to discuss the psychodynamic of the person’s problems with some of the most often used tools in PP. This includes the following therapy steps: observation, inventory, situational encouragement, verbalisation, and broadening of the goals. The results show both similarities and differences between the groups. In 75% of the cases, the duration of the therapy reached 23 sessions. In 66.7% of the cases, the symptoms disappeared completely and in the rest of the cases, they diminished dramatically. Due to the fact that Positive Psychotherapy (PP) presents a trans-cultural framework in which different methods can work and cooperate together, the research presented in this paper can be of interest to psychotherapists, counsellors, and psychiatrists regardless of their psychotherapy training. Furthermore, some ideas on application for purposes of prevention are presented.
Keywords:
positive psychotherapy, trans-cultural adaptation problems, qualitative
International Journal of Psychotherapy: 2013, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 43-58: ISSN 1356-9082
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