Abstract:
Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on the resiliency and alexithymia of the patients with Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD).
Methods: The present research had a quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test and a control group. The study population included all patients with SSD that referred to health care centers of Ahvaz City, in 2016. A total of 30 patients were selected through convenience sampling method and randomized to the experimental and waiting group (each group 15 persons). The experimental group received ACT sessions for 7 weeks continuously (each session lasting 90 minutes), and the control group was put on a waiting list. Groups completed the resiliency questionnaire and Toronto Alexithymia Scale in the pre-test and post-test. The obtained data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS V. 21.
Results: The findings show a significant difference between the average scores of resiliency (F=21.97) and alexithymia (F=19.79) of the experimental and control groups in the post-test stage. So, the method of group therapy based on acceptance and commitment significantly increased resiliency and decreased alexithymia of the patients with SSD (P<0.01).
Conclusion: According to the results, therapists and clinical psychologists can use this method to increase resiliency and decrease alexithymia of the patients with SSD.
Machine summary:
Research Paper: Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Resiliency and Alexithymia of Somatic Symptoms Raha Rostami1, Zahra Dasht Bozorgi1* / 1.
Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Resiliency and Alexithymia of Somatic Symptoms.
So, the method of group therapy based on acceptance and commitment significantly increased resiliency and decreased alexithymia of the patients with SSD (P * Corresponding Author: Zahra Dasht Bozorgi, PhD.
● Acceptance and commitment therapy is an effective treatment for the somatic symptom to increase resiliency and decrease alexithymia.
One effective treatment method to improve the psychological traits that has recently been of great interest to many researchers is Acceptance and Commit-ment Therapy (ACT) (George & Joseph, 2014).
Kiani, Ghasemi, and Pourabbas (2013) also conducted a study on the effect of the therapy based on ACT and mindfulness on the resiliency and concluded that the two methods improved the indices of resiliency.
Although the impact of ACT on psychological charac-teristics has been proven (George & Joseph, 2014), only a few studies have examined its effect on the resiliency, and no research has investigated its effect on alexithymia.
There-fore, the primary goal of this research is to investigate the effect of the group therapy ACT on the resiliency and alexi-thymia in women with SSD.
Discussion The present study aimed to investigate the effect of group ACT therapy on the resiliency and alexithymia of the women with SSD.
The findings indicate the effect of group therapy ACT on increasing resiliency that is consistent with the results of previous studies.