Comparing the effectiveness of group schema therapy and group-based acceptance and commitment therapy on the emotion regulation strategies in substance abusers

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of group schema therapy and group-based acceptance and commitment therapy on emotion regulation strategies in substance abusers.

The statistical population of this study was all men with substance abuse in Mashhad city in 2018. The samples included 60 substance abusers who were selected purposefully and assigned into 3 groups including schema therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy and control. The both experimental groups received 10 ninety interventional sessions. All participants completed emotion regulation questionnaire (Gratz and Roemer, 2004) in pretest, posttest and 3-months follow up. Data analyzed through descriptive statistics, Kolmogrov-Smirnov test, covariance analysis, and SPSS software.

The results showed that both experimental groups showed a significant reduction in maladaptive strategies of emotional regulation and increase in adaptive strategies compared to the control group. The difference between the three groups was significant in the post-test phase (F= 8.119; P<0.001) and 3-month follow-up (F= 0.907; P<0.002).

It seems that schema therapy is more effective than acceptance and commitment therapy to reduce maladaptive strategies of emotional regulation in substance abusers. This effectiveness was maintained at the follow-up stage.