The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy on Experiential Avoidance and Cognitive Fusion of Cancer Patients with Depressive Symptoms

The purpose of this study was to determining the effectiveness of Compassion-Focused therapy on experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion of cancer patients with depression symptoms.

The study was a quasi – experimental design with pre test - post test experimental and control groups. The statistical population of this study was all the cancer patients who refered to the Valiasr Hospital in Tabriz and the offices of several Specialists in Tabriz during the third quarter of 2019. The sample consisted of 30 patients, who were selected with available sampling method. The sample of 30 participants were placed randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, thus 15 patients in the experimental group and 15 patients in the control group. The experimental group received Compassion-Focused therapy in 8 sessions of two hours, while the control group did not receive any intervention. For collecting data, Acceptance and action Questionnaire-II for experiential avoidance measurement, cognitive fusion questionnaire were used. The Data were analyzed with Covariance method.

The results showed that compassion-focused therapy had a significant effect on reducing the experiential avoidance (P<0.03) and cognitive fusion (P<0.01) in cancer patients with depression symptoms.

Therefore, it can be concluded that compassion-focused therapy is an effective intervention to reduce the experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion in cancer patients with depression symptoms.