How Strength-based Counseling effects on Self-Compassion and Future Time Perspective in Adolescents?

Self-compassion helps adolescents to accept themselves unconditionally and Future Time Perspective (FTP) can make them motivated to do their meaningful tasks in the future. The method was a semi-experimental method (pre-test –post-test research) with the control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of 6,232 male students (14-16 years of age) in the 13th district of Tehran (Iran), the sample size was 30 people who were selected by the available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Two questionnaires include the self-compassion of Neff (2003) and the FTP of Brothers, Chui& Diehl (2014) these will be administered three times, a pre-test, a post-test, and a follow-up test. Group counseling was held in twelve sessions for the experimental group for three months, the collected data from the pretest, posttest, and follow-up were analyzed by SPSS software with the help of factorial mixed design with repeated measures. The results show the effectiveness of strength-based group counseling on self-compassion (self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness, and over-identification) and FTP (opportunities, limitations, and ambiguities) after three months of group counseling. Finding signature strengths (five highest strengths) through analyzing life’s experiences helps students to be aware of what they can do well, to learn how they can make decisions about their future, based on character strengths, and to accept their limitations without self-censure.