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Our aim was to describe different types of prison experience and to analyze their relations with background and psychological variables. Seventy-nine male Palestinian ex-prisoners were interviewed about their prison experiences, ways of coping, personality, and psychological well-being. The results of qualitative analysis revealed seven different types of prison experience. Only one of these reflected exclusively negative feelings, characterized by suffering and disillusionment. The others also included relatively rewarding perceptions characterized as a struggle between strength and weakness, heroic fulfillment, developmental tasks, a normative stage in a man's life, growth in personal insight, and return to religion. Results showed that older men, town residents, and those exposed to a high level of torture perceived the imprisonment more as suffering and disillusionment than other men. Ex-prisoners, who perceived their experience as suffering and disillusionment, typically coped by using wishful thinking, avoidance, escape, and distraction. Torture and ill-treatment increased wishful thinking and self-controlling as coping styles.