The effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on social cognition of adolescents with intermittent explosive disorder

Intermittent explosive disorder appears in the social context and in response to social stimuli. Probably, processing social stimuli and responding to them in different social contexts, has an important role in this disorder and Affects its symptoms. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on social cognition in adolescents with intermittent explosive disorder. The present study is a field experiment with pretest-posttest design. The number of 38 students with intermittent explosive disorder were selected through Targeted sampling and They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The two groups at the beginning and the end of the study responded to the questionnaire for screening of intermittent explosive disorder and social stories. During the ten sessions, the experiment group came under the intervention of behavioral cognitive therapy every week. the results of ANCOVA analysis showed that behavioral cognitive therapy was effective on improving social cognition and reducing the symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder. Behavioral cognitive therapy has been effective on improving the steps of encoding signs, representing and interpreting information, and choosing response. But there was no effect on the steps involved in clarifying the objectives and in finding possible answers. It seems that by using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and generalizing them to various social tissues, it is possible to improve the social cognition of people with Intermittent explosive disorder that act as an inhibitory capacity to prevent the symptoms of this disorder in social tissues.