Comparing the effectiveness of compassion-based therapy and cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy on alexithymia of women with premenstrual dysphoria

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD in Educational Planning, Islamic Azad University, Sari Branch, Mazandaran, Iran

2 Master's degree, Clinical Psychology, Ayatollah Amoli University, Mazandaran, Iran

3 Master's degree, Clinical Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Sari Branch, Mazandaran, Iran

4 PhD student Islamic Azad University, Tonkabon Branch

5 PhD Student in Counseling, Islamic Azad University, Tonkabon Branch, Mazandaran, Iran

6 Bachelor of Psychology, Islamic Azad University

10.30479/mhc.2023.18864.1023

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of compassion-based therapy and cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy on the alexithymia of women with premenstrual dysphoria. The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group with a three-month follow-up phase. The statistical population consisted of all women aged 25 to 40 in Sari city with premenstrual dysphoria in 2019 who were referred to psychological counseling centers by gynecologists. 45 people from this community were selected in a purposeful way and randomly assigned in three groups of 15 people. The research tools were: Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (FTAS-20) Bagby et al. (1994) and Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool (PSST). Treatment based on compassion and cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy was performed in 8 sessions of 90 minutes each. Meanwhile, the control group did not receive any intervention during the research. Mixed variance analysis was used to analyze the data. The results showed that the self-compassion treatment group has a significant and stable effect on the difficulty in identifying emotions and externally oriented thinking (P<0.01), but no significant results were observed for the difficulty in describing emotions (P=0.07). Also, the results showed that cognitive behavioral hypnotherapy had a significant effect on all three subscales of alexithymia (P<0.05). No significant difference was observed between the effectiveness of the two treatments (P<0.05). The results indicated that psychologists and specialists can use any of these two treatments to improve distress tolerance in women with premenstrual dysphoria.

Keywords

Mental Health and Culture
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
January 2023
Pages 131-148

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