Niechęć do uczestniczenia w procesie psychoterapii i mediacjach rodzinnych : opór i jego przyczyny

Abstract

Patients’ resistance may occur at any stage of psychotherapy or mediation process. The focus of this paper is on the resistance to use psychotherapy or family mediation. We also explore psychological grounds for the difficulties behind the decision to seek professional psychological help. The resistance in psychotherapy is one of the fundamental problems, hence a lot of research studies and practical techniques can be found regarding the determinants of resistance and strategies how to cope with it. However, in the family mediation literature the conceptualisation of resistance to enter the mediation process has rarely been investigated. In the present paper five main factors of the avoidance of counselling or psychotherapy are analysed, namely: (i) social stigma, (ii) treatment fears, (iii) fear of emotion, (iv) anticipated utility and risk, and (v) problems with self-disclosure. As far as the decision to enter family mediation is concerned the main sources of clients’ resistance can be traced to negative convictions, attitudes and fears of the mediation process. The results of the author’s own research on this subject show that the main components of resistance are: (1) disbelief in effectiveness of mediation, (2) attribution of negative characteristics to mediation, (3) reluctance to involvement of third party, and (4) fear of disclosure of secrets. In the final part of the paper a discussion of similarities between the factors determining the resistance to participate in psychotherapy and family mediation is presented.