The effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on emotional stability and alexithymia in female students

Mental disorders can cause many problems in students' academic performance and also severely affect their cognitive, emotional, moral and social development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on emotional stability and alexithymia in female second-grade high school students.

The present study was a quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design. The statistical population included all girls’ second grade students of the second secondary school in District 8 of Tehran. The sample size consisted of 118 students who were selected by stratified random sampling and assigned to two groups of 59 people as experimental and control groups). Data collection tools were emotional adjustment measure (EAM), Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20), and the ACT protocol. Data analysis was done using SPSS V.21 and multivariate analysis of covariance, and significance level was considered ≤ 0.05.

The findings showed that after adjusting the pre-test scores, ACT in the post-test has a significant effect on the Lack of regulation of emotional and physiological arousals, and despair and wishful thinking with values (F=90.143, F=178.324 respectively, P<0.001). Also, after adjusting the pre-test scores, ACT in the post-test showed a significant effect on the difficulty in identifying feelings (P<0.001, F=91.278), difficulty in describing feelings (P<0.001, F=189.328), and externally-oriented thinking (P<0.001, F=165.544).

Based on the results, ACT training had a positive influence on emotional stability and alexithymia of high school students; the implementation of this protocol in schools and counseling centers is recommended.