The effectiveness of group schema therapy on cognitive emotion regulation strategies in students with social anxiety disorder symptoms

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of group schema therapy on cognitive emotion regulation strategies of students with social anxiety disorder. This study was an experimental research، and a pre-test، post-test and control group design was applied. The statistical population of this study included male students in Isfahan University with social anxiety disorder symptoms in the academic year of 1392-93. The sample of the study included 20 male students among the male students in Isfahan University which had been identified by the scales of Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) and Structured Clinical Interview through simple random sampling. Then they were assigned into two groups of control and experimental. They were finally assessed with cognitive emotional regulation strategy scales. The experimental group received group schema therapy training for 2 months (8 sessions of 90 minutes) while the control group received no training at all. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that group schema therapy training of cognitive emotion regulation strategies was effective. In addition، schema therapy can improve positive reappraisal، refocus on planning، self-blame، rumination، other-blame and catastrophizing. Schema therapy can be used as an effective intervention for the treatment of diseases that cognitive emotion regulation strategies play a key role in maintaining.