The comparing effectiveness of the group therapy of schema therapy and acceptance and commitment on self-differentiation of teenage girls

Introduction: adolescence is an important phase of human growth. Puberty leads to a set of physiological, emotional, cognitive, and social changes in adolescents, which affect different dimensions of their life including the self-differentiation of adolescents. Hence, the improvement of self-differentiation of these individuals has been addressed by many therapists. The purpose of this study was to the comparing effectiveness of the group therapy of schema therapy and acceptance and commitment on self-differentiation of teenage girls. Method: The research method was a quasi-experiment study conducted with a pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of this study included all the female students of high school in Tehran city in the year academic 2018-2019. In this study, 45 teenage girls were considered as the sample size and divided into two experimental groups each group of 15 teen girls and control 15 teen girls. The experimental groups such as; schema therapy   19 sessions 90 minutes and schema therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy 12 sessions 90 minutes received the interventions.  While the control group received no intervention. To collect data self-differentiation used the short form self-differentiation (SDI-SF) of Drake, Murdock, Marszalek, and Barber (2015). Results: The results showed that both schema therapy and acceptance commitment used in this study can significantly improve the self-differentiation of teen girls. But the schema therapy on self-differentiation has a greater impact (effect Size= 54.1%). Results highlight the importance of these interventions for self-differentiation among teenage girls and providing new perspectives in clinical interventions. Conclusion: it seems that counselors and psychotherapists can be attention to the effectiveness of schema therapy and acceptance commitment in increasing the teenage girls’ self- differentiation.