Self-Trust and Self-Distrust in the Context of Clients' Psychotherapeutic Experiences

With the rapid development and diversification of modern reality, intrapersonal conflicts have become more frequent due to the internalization of the plethora of various attitudes and values. Thus it has become necessary for an individual to discern between those beliefs that they should trust and others that should be distrusted. The problem of relating to one’s experience with trusting or distrusting attitudes arouses much interest among psychotherapists and authors of psychotherapeutic approaches. Although a platitude of studies has proved a positive role of self-trust, there is a lack of self-distrust research. The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of self-trust and self-distrust in the context of clients' psychotherapeutic experiences. Data for this study has been collected using phenomenological interviews (17 participants) and analyzed through the framework of condensation of meaning method. As the result, the current understanding of self-trust and self-distrust has been expanded by creating a new conceptual model of the phenomena that consists of two relatively autonomous continuums.