Sociotherapy Helpfulness Research among Children and Adolescents

The article presents results of sociotherapy helpfulness research among adolescents experiencing existential frustration. Helpfulness is understood to mean an evidence-based approach which suggests that adolescents' reflexive reports are valid data to be analyzed. The issue of providing sociotherapy to children and adolescents experiencing existential frustration is accentuated by the fact that they need to experience not only the authenticity of boundaries, values, intentions, and capabilities, but also to experience the authenticity of authenticity itself. In sociotherapeutic practices children and adolescents are engaged in joint activities, which are, to a large extent, artificial, and built on symbolic values. Therefore, it is important to be guided not only by goals, means, and regulations, but also by evidence-based helpfulness. As a result of phenomenological analysis of reflexive texts written by adolescents at the end of a six-month sociotherapeutic program the main themes and meanings of the experience of identification and authentification were singled out.