The Effectiveness Evaluation of Group Training (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) in Reducing the Signs and Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Increasing Mindfulness

Background and Objective: Acceptance and commitment therapy is a behavioral therapy that uses skills of mindfulness, acceptance and cognetive defusion to increase psychological flexibility (Herbert and Forman, 2011). Generalized anxiety can affect a person's mindfulness and cognitive avoidance and influenced them reciprocally. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of group training -Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - in reducing the signs and symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and increasing the mindfulness.Methods: This study is a quasi-experimental design (pretest - posttest with control group). In this study, 100 sophomore students of high-school girls who studied in high-schools of Marivan in academic year of 93-94, were selected for sampling. The instruments of the standardized Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), Cognitive Avoidance Questionnaire (CAQ) of Sexton and Dugas and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) of Bauer et.,al. were used in this study. In the questionnaire of PSWQ, of those who got the score higher than 43, 40 students randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group, during a two-month period, for 12 sessions, two sessions per week and each session lasting 45 minutes, were imposed to an independent variable (group training of acceptance and commitment therapy). To test the research hypotheses, covariance analysis and descriptive statistics were used. Results: The results of covariance analysis on the pre-test and post-test scores showed that between the experienced groups – trained group by acceptance and commitment therapy- and controlled group there is a significant difference in generalized anxiety variable, cognitive avoidance and mindfulness.Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, we can conclude that group training of acceptance and commitment therapy in reducing generalized anxiety disorder and declining cognitive avoidance and mindfulness were effective upon sophomore high-school girls’ students.Limitation: One of the major limitations in doing of this study was schedule of group training for students. In some cases holding those sessions was interfering with school classes’ time

کلیدواژه ها:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) ، Cognitive Avoidance ، Generalized Anxiety Disorder ، Mindfulness