Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effect of Wisdom Psychotherapy on Wisdom Skills

Abstract Stemming from life span psychology there is for decades extensive basic research in wisdom psychology. Wisdom is defined as “expertise” to master difficult situations in life. Still, research on wisdom in clinical psychology and psychotherapy has only just begun. Goal of the present study was to test whether wisdom skills can be improvred by wisdom psychotherapy. Psychosomatic inpatients, suffering from adjustment disorders, were treated either with group wisdom psychotherapy (N = 114) or group behavioral activation (N = 109). An additional treatment-as-usual-group was build by propensity matching from other inpatients (N = 114). There was an increase of wisdom skills and a significant time-x-group interaction in favor of wisdom psychotherapy. This was still seen half a year later. There were trends for an improvement in the Beck-Depression-Inventory and in an embitterment score in the wisdom group, but no time-x-group interactions for other clinical measures. Wisdom psychotherapy can increase wisdom skills. As wisdom is a capacity to cope with difficult dilemma in life and a resilience factor, wisdom psychotherapy can be a supplement to traditional psychotherapeutic approaches.