Effectiveness of Time Perspective Therapy (TPT) on Experiential Avoidance of Mothers of Girls with Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability is a disorder identified with obvious limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviors. Families of such children, especially mothers, often experience tremendous psychological strain. Therefore, it is necessary that this disorder be coped with using new treatment methods. In recent years, Time perspective therapy (TPT) has been presented as a new approach in the field of pathology. Time perspective therapy helps individuals relate their behaviors with past, present, and future, and reflect upon their attitudes, beliefs, and values thereof. Researchers in various domains of psychopathology have been developing TPT techniques as well as investigating its effectiveness. Accordingly, the present study is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of TPT on experiential avoidance of mothers of girls with intellectual disability.
This is a two-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research. The population included all mothers of children with educable intellectual disability in the City of Isfahan in 2016 (N= 2700) according to the report of the Exceptional Children Office. The participants were selected through convenience sampling technique. Accordingly, a total of 40 participants were randomly selected from among mothers of girls with intellectual disability in one of the intellectual disability schools for girls in education district two in Isfahan-Iran. The participants were then randomly assigned to control and experimental groups in equal numbers. In the next step, the experimental group participated in six one-hour training sessions, twice a week, while the control group received no training. The research instrument was the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire - II (AAQ-II) (Bond et al. 2011). ANCOVA procedures were used for analyzing the data.
Descriptive statistics showed a drop in post- test avoidance mean scores. Inferential statistics showed the decrease to be statistically significant at p It can be concluded that the establishment of balance between various points of time and helping clients change their focus on specific points of time as well as the creation of positive attitudes towards three time dimensions (past, present, and future) leads to a decrease in the mean scores of clients’ experiential avoidance in the TPT group. The results also indicated that TPT is capable of reducing experiential avoidance in mothers of girls with intellectual disability. As a result, it can be concluded that the TPT is an appropriate approach for decreasing experiential avoidance in this group of individuals. As such, the method is highly recommended.