Abstract
"Background: Sex workers face challenges to their mental health including experiences of stigma, discrimination, and violence. Therefore, mental health clinicians need to be able to provide sex workers with non-judgmental care and support. It has been highlighted that by focusing on psychopathology, research with sex workers contributes to unhelpful pathologizing assumptions in clinical practice. Additionally, a pathology-based focus risks neglecting the resilience, strengths, and coping skills of sex workers. Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome adversity and can encompass individual and social resources. Developing understanding of the resilience of sex workers can reduce pathologization and stigma, and inform strengths-based support and interventions. The aim of this review was to address the question: How do sex workers demonstrate resilience in relation to the challenges they experience?
Method: Electronic searches were completed using Psychology Cross Search (including PsychINFO and MEDLINE). Fourteen eligible studies were identified from the initial 208 results found. Eligible studies were reviewed using a qualitative quality appraisal tool and a thematic synthesis of study findings was completed.
Findings: Three main themes were developed regarding sex workers’ resilience at the individual/personal, the collective/community level, and demonstrations of resilience through resistance and defining their own narratives.
Conclusions: Qualitative research around the resilience of sex workers is limited. Implications for practice and future research are discussed, including the need for further research with an explicit and primary focus upon the resilience of sex workers as well as longitudinal research to explore the different trajectories of sex workers’ resilience."