Background: Therapists deal with a wide range of challenging situations that can affect therapy outcome. This study explores the nature of these situations, and develops a taxonomy of these...Show moreBackground: Therapists deal with a wide range of challenging situations that can affect therapy outcome. This study explores the nature of these situations, and develops a taxonomy of these challenging therapy situations. The findings contribute to therapist’s training and improve therapy outcome. Furthermore the study aims to examine the hypothesis that a higher score on the Professional-Self-Doubt-scale translates to a greater number of words used when describing a challenging situation. The last aim is to explore a potential difference between level of PSD and the type of situations. Methods: The study employs a mixed-qualitative design, using an online questionnaire. A total of 245 therapists participated (89%-female, average-age 41). Participants described 169 challenging therapy situations. Thematic analysis was applied to categorize the qualitative data. PSD was measured using the PSD-scale. Spearman correlation was used to correlate number of words and PSD-score. Chi-Square tests and a Kruskal-Wallis test was used to explore the relation between PSD-score and category of challenging situation. Results: The framework by Henkel et al. (2019) was used to categorize challenging therapy situations, not all situations fit the existing framework. Proposed changes include the introduction of three new subcategories. No significant correlation was found between PSD-score and wordcount. Furthermore no significant relation was found between PSD-score and category of challenging therapy situations. Conclusions: The framework of challenging therapy situations by Henkel et al. (2019) can be expanded and refined. More research is needed in order to examine the relation between level of PSD and category of challenging therapy situation.Show less
