"You think lots of love will heal the child, but it requires a lifetime of patience". Foster parents' intrapersonal and interpersonal struggles.

Background: Foster parents can be placed under significant demands when caring for foster children with extensive needs. Coming to terms with the challenges they have to face can be a daunting prospect. To examine foster parents' experiences is vital with a view to enhancing their resilience amid sustained demands and improving the professional support offered to them.

Are We Together in This? Relationship Experiences of Parents of Children with Craniofacial Anomalies.

Objective: The birth of a child with a craniofacial anomaly (CFA) can have a profound psychological impact on the family and the parental relationship. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively investigate how a child's CFA condition affected parents' couple relationship.

Setting: All patients with a CFA are followed-up by the National Unit for Craniofacial Surgery, a specialized and multidisciplinary team.

The need to belong: Subjective experiences of living with craniofacial conditions and undergoing appearance-altering surgery.

The purpose of this study was to better understand how individuals with craniofacial conditions experience living with visible differences and make sense of appearance-altering surgery. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 11 adults with Goldenhar or Crouzon syndrome. Interviews were analysed using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to thematic analysis.

Opening Up: Clients' Inner Struggles in the Initial Phase of Therapy.

Objective: To explore how clients in clinical settings experience the process of opening up and sharing their inner experiences in the initial phase of therapy.

Methods: Two psychotherapy sessions of clients ( = 11) were videotaped and followed by interviews. Interpersonal process recall was used to obtain in-depth descriptions of clients' immediate experiences in session.

The embodied listener: a dyadic case study of how therapist and patient reflect on the significance of therapist's personal presence for the therapeutic change process.

: There is a need to understand more of the dyadic processes in therapy and how the therapist's are experienced and reflected upon by both patient and therapist. The aim of this dyadic case study was to investigate how the therapist's personal presence was perceived by the patient and the therapist as contributing to change.: From a larger project on collaborative actions between patient and therapist, a dyadic case involving in-depth interviews of the therapist and patient was selected to examine the research question.

Therapists' Experiences of Psychodynamic Therapy with and without Transference Interventions for Adolescents with Depression.

Psychodynamic therapy is an effective treatment for depression. However, a large number of adolescent patients with depression do not respond and/or drop out of therapy and little is known about what therapists actually do in therapy with adolescents. Thus, more research is needed to explore the various actions that therapists do in therapy, so that therapists can tailor their therapy more specifically to each individual adolescent.

Subjective experience of the origin and development of avoidant personality disorder.

Objective: To better understand how persons diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) make sense of the origin and development of their current everyday struggles.

Methods: Persons with AVPD (N = 15) were interviewed twice using semi-structured qualitative interviews, which were analyzed through interpretative-phenomenological analysis. Persons with the first-hand experience of AVPD were included in the research.

Lived Experience of Treatment for Avoidant Personality Disorder: Searching for Courage to Be.

To inquire into the subjective experience of treatment by persons diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder. Persons with avoidant personality disorder ( = 15) were interviewed twice, using semi-structured in-depth interviews, and the responses subject to interpretative-phenomenological analysis. Persons with first-hand experience of avoidant personality disorder were included in the research process.

Struggling to be a person: Lived experience of avoidant personality disorder.

Objective: To better understand the subjective lived experience of persons diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD).

Methods: Persons with an AVPD (N = 15) were interviewed twice with semistructured qualitative interviews and analyzed through interpretative-phenomenological analysis. Persons with first-hand experience of AVPD were included in the research process.

"It's both a strength and a drawback." How therapists' personal qualities are experienced in their professional work.

The aim of this study was to gain knowledge about how the integration of personal and professional experiences affects therapeutic work. : Therapists ( = 14) who had been recommended by their leaders at their individual workplaces were interviewed twice with semi-structured qualitative interviews, which were then subjected to thematic and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. All the therapists in the sample described their personal qualities as an experienced tension between their personal strengths and vulnerabilities in the therapeutic setting.

Wisdom in professional knowledge: Why it can be valuable to listen to the voices of senior psychotherapists.

Objective: To explore the nature of professional wisdom, through learning from the experiences of a group of highly experienced senior therapists.

Method: Twelve senior psychotherapists took part in qualitative in-depth interviews about their professional role and their views around a range of aspects of therapy theory and practice. Interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis.

How does practicing psychotherapy affect the personal life of the therapist? A qualitative inquiry of senior therapists' experiences.

Objective: To investigate how psychotherapists' lives and relationships are influenced by their work.

Method: Twelve senior psychotherapists took part in qualitative interviews.

Results: Thematic analysis yielded four significant themes: (i) it has been a privilege to know and contribute, and to be allowed to grow personally; (ii) facing suffering and destructiveness has been a burden; (iii) being a therapist has had an impact on my personal relationships-for better and worse; and (iv) I have needed to construct a way of living that allowed me to continue to do the work.