Financial Crises and Psychological Distress: The Role of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) as a Clinical Intervention

Individual financial crises – including personal debt, income loss, and unemployment – represent one of the strongest psychosocial risk factors for mental disorders in adult populations, yet clinical practice lacks validated interventions specifically designed for this context. This article addresses three convergent gaps: the absence of integrated theoretical frameworks explaining the pathway from financial to psychological crisis; clinical interventions not tailored to chronic financial stress; and the complete absence of randomized controlled trials testing Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) in financially distressed populations. Using secondary data analysis integrating seven key meta-analyses, epidemiological data from Polish population surveys, and European reports, the study grounds its analysis in three theoretical models: Conservation of Resources Theory, Prospect Theory, and the Stress Process Model. The analysis documents substantial effect sizes linking debt and unemployment to mental disorders and suicide risk. SFBT demonstrates moderate-to-large effectiveness at the highest level of evidence synthesis. The article identifies a critical research gap and proposes a concrete randomized controlled trial protocol with wait-list control design, targeting depression and anxiety as primary outcomes and mastery as mediator. Three practical recommendations for clinicians are formulated. The Polish context – characterized by significant psychiatric care deficits and over 2.4 million overdue debtors – provides particularly strong ecological validity for the proposed trial.