Conceptualising Resilience: Exploring Cognitive Behavioural Therapists’ Perspectives and Implications on Practice

This preliminary qualitative study explores how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) practitioners conceptualise resilience and how these conceptualisations influence the selection of intervention strategies aimed at fostering resilience in clients. Three CBT therapists participated in extensive Free Association interviews, with professional experience ranging from three to fourteen years. Data were generated using the Grid Elaboration Method to elicit detailed accounts and were analysed using Thematic Analysis. Three overarching themes were constructed: Self-Concept as a Core Psychological Resource for Resilience; Positive Adaptation as a Contextual and Relational Process; Integrating Traditional and Third-Wave CBT Approaches in Resilience-Building. Our findings provide a nuanced account of how CBT therapists understand resilience and outline how mindfulness-based and CBT-informed interventions are employed to enhance resilience in clinical practice. The study supports existing research highlighting the definitional ambiguity of resilience and its influence on the selection of therapeutic interventions according to the skills prioritised in therapy. In addition, the findings extend current knowledge by demonstrating a relationship between therapists’ held notions of resilience and their lived experiences and underscore the significance of three psychological resources in resilience-focused work: self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-awareness. Distinct contributions of this paper include a social-psychological driven examination of resilience in CBT, foregrounding therapists’ meaning-making processes and demonstrating how theoretical understandings, rather than protocol adherence alone, shape clinical intervention.