The effectiveness of existential group therapy in improving problem-solving skills

Problems and difficulties are part of the human beings'' life; hence it is important to learn how to deal with the life''s problem and difficulties in order to improve the mental health. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficiency of existential group therapy in improving the problem-solving skills. This study was a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest approach. Thirty subjects referring to the Counseling and Psychological Service Center of Ferdowsi University in Mashhad were selected based on a screening method and were randomly divided into two equal groups; experimental and control groups. A problem-solving questionnaire was used for data collection and the intervention method was performed by existential group therapy two hours a week for eight sessions. Mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive data analysis and we used ANCOVA for statistical inference. The results suggested that the problem-solving skills in the experimental group improved significantly (P≤0. 001). Moreover، this improvement was observed in subscales of closeness (P≤0. 001)، control (P≤0. 001)، avoidance (P=0. 01)، confidence (P≤0. 001)، and creation (P≤0. 001). But we noticed no improvement in the problem-solving skills in regard to helplessness (p= 0. 82). Existential group therapy was an effective intervention for improving problem-solving skills in our study.