Resilience in Children with a Divorce History in Their Origin Families - A Case Study on a Preadolescent -.

Introduction: Parental divorce is seen as one of the causes for children's, as well as adolescents' emotional and behavioral difficulties/distress. Empirical studies show that resilience is a key factor for how children adapt to a traumatic event, such as their parents' divorce. Objectives: This study has as therapeutic objectives to unlock repressed emotions, as well as teach and guide learning of healthy ways of emotional expression, to increase self-confidence and improve the capacity to adapt in difficult contexts, to consolidate the child - parent relationship and develop self-consciousness in a boy whose parents went through a divorce process. The case study is focused on a 10-year-old preadolescent whose parents have divorced and later reunited as a couple, who was presenting social anxiety and difficulties in managing his negative emotions at the time of his coming to psychotherapy. Methods: The psychotherapeutic process was developed in 12 sessions of experiential psychotherapy, by using expressive-creative methods, drawing, play dough and roleplay. Results: The experiential psychotherapeutic intervention reduced the preadolescent's social anxiety and improved his capacity to adapt in difficult/unfamiliar contexts. Conclusions: By preparing this case study, it has been observed that divorce has a great impact on the development of preadolescents, leading to a high level of anxiety, low self-esteem and behavioral disorders, while building resilience protects the children of the negative effects of the distress caused by parental divorce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]