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Clients’ experiences of moments of sadness in psychotherapy: A grounded theory analysis

Abstract Although few studies have examined the experience of depression, no research has been conducted on the experience of sadness in psychotherapy. In this study, clients were interviewed about their experience of sadness using an interpersonal process recall method, these interviews were subjected to grounded theory analysis, and a model of sadness experienced in psychotherapy was derived. The resulting core category—in therapy, the experience of sadness is a struggle against the fear of becoming trapped within the painful, existential question “Who am I?”—captures the essence of the experience of the clients’ sadness and describes the struggle, the causes of sadness, and ways therapists facilitated sadness exploration. The findings are discussed in reference to clinical application and future psychotherapy research.