Emotion Focused Therapy Enduringly Reduces Depression and Increases Self-Compassion in Women with Breast Cancer: A Semi-Experimental Study

Introduction: Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is designed to help patients identify and process their emotions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of emotion-focused therapy on improving depression and self-compassion in women with breast cancer. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group and a 3-month follow-up. The sample consisted of 30 women with breast cancer in Tehran who had a depression score of >17 at screening and were selected via purposive sampling and randomly placed in experimental and control groups of 15. The experimental group underwent EFTover twelve 50-minute individual sessions according to the Greenberg emotion-focused therapy protocol. Research data were collected using the Beck Depression Inventory and the Self-compassion Scale before, after, and 3 months after the end of treatment. Data analysis was performed using repeated-measures two-way ANOVA. Results: The experimental group scored significantly higher in self-compassion and lower in depression in the posttest compared with the pretest. In the follow-up assessment, depression scores were as low as the posttest levels, but self-compassion scores decreased relative to the posttest; however, they remained significantly above the pre-test levels. In the control group, both depression and self-compassion scores were stable over time. Conclusion: EFT can be used as an appropriate intervention to reduce depression and increase self-compassion significantly and enduringly in women with breast cancer.