The Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Self-Esteem, Cognitive-Emotional Regulation and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in adolescent girls

Due to the pressures and tensions between adolescence, self-injury may be done with the aim of reducing the negative tensions and emotions. Based on the emotional regulation model, the most important motivation in this behavior can be related to the regulation of unpleasant emotions. The aim of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy on self-esteem, cognitive emotion regulation, and non-suicidal self-injury behavior in Pardis secondary school girls. For this purpose, in this quasi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test and control group, 30 students from the junior high school girl students of Pardis City, who had performed at least once a non-suicidal self-injury behavior, were selected by access sampling and randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received dialectical behavior therapy in 10 sessions. The groups were tested before and after the intervention in terms of self-esteem, cognitive emotion regulation, self-injury behaviour’s and functions. The results of covariance analysis showed dialectical behavior therapy in reducing self-injury behavior, increasing self-esteem and reducing catastrophe in the experimental group compared to the control group. According to the results, dialectical behavior therapy could improve self-esteem, emotion regulation and reduce self-injury behaviour’s in adolescent girls.