Effectiveness Of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy On Working Memory In The Patients With Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

The present study was conducted aiming to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on working memory in the patients with obsessive compulsive disorder.

The present study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, control group design and two-month follow-up stage. The statistical population of the study included the people with obsessive compulsive disorder who referred to centers of psychology and consultation services in the city of Isfahan from March to July 2020. 30 people with obsessive compulsive disorder were selected through convenient sampling method and they were randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (each group of 15). 4 individuals from the experimental group and 1 person were excluded from the study. The experimental group received ten ninety-minute sessions of Acceptance and commitment therapy (Hayes et al, 2004) during two-and-a- half months. The applied questionnaires in this study included Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive Scale (Goodman, Rasmussen, 1986) and And working memory measurement tools. The data from the study were analyzed through repeated measurement ANOVA.

the results showed that Acceptance and commitment therapy has significant effect (p<0.001) on working memory in the patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. In this way, this treatment has been able to improve the working memory of people with obsessive- compulsive disorder.

the findings of the present study showed that the Acceptance and commitment therapy can be used as an efficient therapy to increase working memory in the people with obsessive compulsive disorder through employing techniques such as mental techniques, observing the self as the background, cognitive defusion techniques, stipulating values, and committed action.