The Effectiveness of Existential Psychotherapy on the Basis of Rumi, s Thoughts on Depression Treatment and Ego Development Level Improvement

The main purpose of the present study is to establish a theoretical framework for existential psychotherapy and develop an existential psychotherapy package on the basis of Mowlana’s (rumi) thoughts. It also aims at evaluating the effectiveness of the therapy proposed in decreasing depression and improving the ego development level. The study design consisted of two distinct qualitative and quantitative parts. The methodology applied for the quantitative part was pretest-posttest with control group. The statistical population was clients of mental health centers of the universities located at Tehran over summer and autumn 2010. Of this, 32 students were randomly selected to participate in the study. The experimental group was treated with the therapy proposed while the control group did not receive any treatment. According to the statistical analyses (co-variance and t-test), the therapy proposed was found to be effective in decreasing depression as well as increasing the ego development level among the participants. This finding is of great importance due to the high prevalence of depression in most of the societies and the necessity of its treatment by an efficient method as well as the importance of ego development level and the need for reaching a method for its improvement. Therefore, it can be concluded that in addition to opening new directions in different fields of psychology, including religion psychology, personality psychology, and psychopathology, this work can be considered as a multidisciplinary study which bridges the three fields of psychology mentioned.