The interaction between good life conceptions and psychotherapeutic practice - an interpretative phenomenological study of psychologists' experiences.

Based on qualitative interviews with four Danish psychologists and employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study explored psychologists' understandings about the good life and how these influence the participants' clinical practice. The study found that the participants were quite aware of how their conceptions of the good life play a role in their work. Good life understandings that influenced therapeutic practice were quite similar amongst participants and were largely characterized by traits often associated with good mental health. Themes identified were: "Everyday well-being," "presence", and "taking care of oneself and others," and subthemes were "contact with the self," "awareness of the good things in life," "connectedness," "to mean something to others," "coping with distress," and "compassion for oneself and others." Among participants, these good life conceptions had a similar influence on different areas of their practice in terms of how the participants understand their clients' issues, which impacted what they talk to their clients about, and what they seek to achieve with the clients in therapy. Therefore, the good life conceptions influenced the methods, techniques, personal behaviors, and therapeutic approaches used to provide good and effective therapy. Another finding was that participants' clinical experiences also seemed to impact their good life conceptions. The interpretation of the participants' experiences represented a hermeneutic model suggesting that the participants' good life conceptions and their clinical practice experiences might inform and reinforce each other in a continuously expanding overlap. The actual nature of this interaction and its implications are relevant for future research.