Effectiveness of Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy on Improving the Use of Emotion Regulation Strategies among Codependent Women

Shahla Sadegh Zadeh¹ Fatemeh Kamal Abadi² Mohammad masoud motevalli³ Nasibeh Karami⁴ kaveh Qaderi Bagajan⁵

1) M.Sc in Clinical Psychology, Islamic Azad University of Roodehen , Iran
2) M.Sc in Clinical Psychology, Islamic Azad University , Hamadan Branch
3) M.Sc in Clinical Psychology, Allameh Tabataba i University, Tehran , Iran
4) M.Sc in Positive Psychology Islamic Azad University, Malayer Branch
5) M.Sc in Clinical Psychology, Allameh Tabataba i University, Tehran , Iran

IOI Code : XYGB-BCBKB
Publication : The 4th International Conference on Modern Researches in Humanities(4mrhconf.com)
Abstract :
    Background and Objectives: The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness of group interpersonal psychotherapy on improving the use of emotion-regulation strategies in codependent women. Materials and Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental research type with a pre-test/ post-test control group design and a three-month follow-up. The statistical population of the study included all codependent women in the city of Tehran referring to the Codependents Anonymous Society. To this end, 150 women were selected based on convenience sampling method and then the Spann-Fischer Codependency Scale (1991) was administered. Afterwards, 20 women who had obtained codependency scores higher than the mean scores gained by other participants and also had met the inclusion criteria in this study were randomly selected and placed into two groups: experimental and control. The experimental group received 12 intervention sessions through group interpersonal psychotherapy. The given sessions were held once a week and lasted for 90 minutes. During this time period, the control group received no intervention. The subjects of this study were also evaluated using the Cognitive Emotion-Regulation Questionnaire by Garnefski et al prior to the onset of intervention, at the end of the intervention, and also after a one-month follow-up. Results: The results of mixed between-within-subjects analysis of variance showed the significant effect of group Interpersonal psychotherapy on the use of positive emotion-regulation strategies in codependent women considering the significance level obtained in the status of subjects for the group variable. In other words, group interpersonal psychotherapy led to a significant increase in the use of positive cognitive emotion-regulation strategies in the experimental group compared to that by the control group, but it had no significant impact on the use of negative emotion-regulation strategies. Conclusion: Finally, based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that group interpersonal psychotherapy had an effect on the improved use of positive emotion-regulation strategies in codependent women. In this regard, clinical psychologists were recommended to take advantage of this type of intervention in their therapies.

Keywords : interpersonal psychotherapy group therapy codependent women emotion regulation strategies