Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Group Therapy in Social Intimacy, Social Acceptance, and Self-Compassion of Clients with anxiety referring to Counseling Centers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D student, Department of Psychology, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord, Iran.

2 Associate Professor ,Department of Psychology, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord, Iran. 3

3 Assistant Professor,Department of Psychology, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Anxiety is a general, vague, and very unpleasant emotional feeling of anxiety that accompanies one or more physical feelings.
Objective: The aim of this study was the effectiveness of group therapy focused on emotion on social intimacy, social acceptance, and compassion for anxious clients in counseling centers in Isfahan.
Method: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group and a one-month follow-up period. The statistical population of the study was 40 anxious clients of Isfahan counseling centers in the spring and summer of 2020 who were selected by available sampling method from Tohid counseling centers in Isfahan and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (20 people in each group). The experimental group received an emotion-focused treatment program for 12 sessions of 120 minutes (once a week), while the control group did not receive any intervention. The research instruments included the SCL-90 questionnaire, self-compassion scale, social intimacy questionnaire, and social acceptance test scale which were performed on experimental and control groups in pre-test and post-test stages. The collected data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance using the SPSS 24 software package.
Results: The results showed that emotion-focused therapy had a significant effect on increasing social intimacy, social acceptance, and self-compassion (p <0.01).
Conclusion: It can be said that emotion-focused therapy is a useful intervention to increase social intimacy, social acceptance, and self-compassion in people with generalized anxiety disorder.

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