A comparative study on the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment therapy and mindfulness therapy on cognitive emotion regulation of female adolescents with self-harming behaviors

The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of acceptance and commitment therapy and mindfulness therapy on the cognitive emotion regulation of female adolescents with self-harming behaviors. The present study is a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The study population consisted of all female students studying in the first secondary schools of District 1 of public schools in Tehran in the academic year of 2020-2021. Among them, 60 people were selected using the cluster stage sampling method and were randomly assigned to three equal groups (20 people in each group). The research instrument included the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) (Garnowski et al., 2006) which was performed in three stages before, after, and 2 months after the completion of sessions. Therapeutic interventions for experimental groups were held in 8 sessions, but the control group did not receive any intervention. The results obtained from multivariate analysis of covariance showed that both intervention methods are effective in improving cognitive emotion regulation and its components and their effect lasted over time (P<0.01). Also, the results of the t-test showed that there is no significant difference between the effects of the two methods on cognitive emotion regulation of students with self-harming behaviors, but the effectiveness of mindfulness on cognitive positive and negative emotion regulation strategies was higher.