The transition to university presents several challenges for emerging adults, with the literature revealing an association between university adaptation, life satisfaction and psychological resilience. Moreover, there is a growing interest in investigating the effect of personal therapy on overall student experience. The current study explored the role of personal therapy on the association between university adaptation, psychological resilience and life satisfaction. The sample consisted of 224 Greek-speaking students, 99 men (44.2%) and 125 women (55.4%), with a mean age of 21.61 years (SD = 2.95). Participants completed the College Adaptation Questionnaire, the Resilience Evaluation Scale and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Results revealed that participants had statistically significant differences in university adaptation, (z = -5.18, p < .001), psychological resilience (z = -5.14, p < .001) and life satisfaction (z = -3.76, p < .001), with students who engaged in personal therapy scoring higher. Additionally, strong positive correlations were found between the three main variables (from rho = .56 to rho = .69, p< .001). Finally, mediation and moderation analysis revealed that psychological resilience partially mediated the relationship between university adaptation and life satisfaction, while university adaptation was found to be a stronger predictor of life satisfaction for students who engaged in personal therapy over students without therapy resulting in psychological therapy being a significant moderator of this association. Results point out the significant role of personal therapy, whereas its interpretation from the frame of counselling and positive psychology can provide clinical implications for improving the quality of university experience.
Parpottas et al. (Wed,) studied this question.