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 Table of Contents  
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Year : 2017  |  Volume : 3  |  Issue : 4  |  Page : 235-239

The effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on affection control of anxious women


Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan), Isfahan, Iran

Date of Web Publication9-Feb-2018

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Mozhgan Arefi
Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan), Isfahan
Iran
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/jepr.jepr_11_17

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  Abstract 


AIM: The present study was carried out with the aim of assigning the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on affection control of anxious women who referred to Consultation Centers in Esfahan.
METHODS: The research method was quasi-experimental and with pretest–posttest using control group. Statistical population of this study included anxious women who had referred to Aban, Aeein, and Milad-e Noor Consultation Centers in Esfahan in 2016. Among them, 30 persons were selected through convenience sampling and were divided randomly in two control and experimental groups (each included 15 persons). The experimental group attended 15 dynamic psychotherapy sessions that each session lasted 60 min. None of the members of control group attend dynamic psychotherapy sessions. The instruments of the study included Zung's Self-rating Anxiety and Williams's Affection Control Scale. The data collected from scales were analyzed by covariance analysis and using the SPSS-23 software.
FINDINGS: The results showed that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy increased the score of affection control in anxious women (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION: Considering the results and findings, we conclude that intervention of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy improves and controls affections in women.

Keywords: Affections control, anxious women, intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy


How to cite this article:
Qaziani MM, Arefi M. The effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on affection control of anxious women. Int J Educ Psychol Res 2017;3:235-9

How to cite this URL:
Qaziani MM, Arefi M. The effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on affection control of anxious women. Int J Educ Psychol Res [serial online] 2017 [cited 2024 Mar 29];3:235-9. Available from: https://www.ijeprjournal.org/text.asp?2017/3/4/235/225093




  Introduction Top


Anxiety is a comprehensive term for several psychiatric disorders.[1] It is a state that appears in everyone's life with different levels, everyone at least experiences this feeling once.[2] Anxious people have problem in encountering their emotions which include misunderstanding of emotions, wrong reaction against emotional experiences, and difficulty in giving proper response to control emotions.[3] Therefore, anxiety can exert bad influence over marriage compatibility, couples relationship, academic performance, talent development, personality development, self-efficiency, self-control, and affection control skill.[4],[5]

It should be noted that marriage relationship is on the basis of affections between man and wife; the deeper emotional relations make marriage relations more dynamic and change their relationship from mechanical state to an emotional feeling and arouse a wonderful feeling between them. It is clear under such a condition that man and wife can experience a good emotional relationship.[6]

Furthermore, affection plays an important role in human's life. We can hardly imagine life without affection.[7] Characteristics and changes of affections, how to develop emotional relations, understanding and interpretation of other's feeling play an important role in personality development, evolution of morality and social relations, identity formation and concept of “Self.”[8] In this regard, psychological interventions to identify and reduce suffers and weakness, negative affections, distress, anxiety, and fulfill human's abilities, and aptitudes are the subjects that psychologist, psychiatrists, social workers, and general practitioners and also lawyers pay special attention to them. The basis of this intervention includes listening, providing facilities, and disclosing feelings and opinions.[9] Various medical and educational methods have been applied for anxious women. One of these methods is intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy.

The principle of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy is based on type of medical relation and nature of disclosure. The therapist's attitude and proper techniques for this attitude inspire patients to identify and touch their deep feeling and achieve better mental health.[10] intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy emphasizes on instant assistance to the patient to experience unconscious emotions that cause unconscious anxiety, develop disorders and defenses. Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy appears in samples with multiple psychiatric disorders and patients with depression, personality, and anxiety disorders.[11]

Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy is a kind of therapy that helps patient to come across his/her unconscious conflicts and emotions, those conflicts and emotions that occur in life by psychological disorders.[12] By this approach, therapist assists patients to overcome their anxiety and defensive strategies. In this procedure, the patient learns to experience tolerable and overwhelming affect and endure their painful feeling of their bad experiences in the past. As a result of this process, the defensive behavior of patient would be reduced.[13]

The common ground of intervention of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy in deep emotional experience during treatment has been high activity of therapist to encourage patient to collaborate, considering time limit, having concentration on treatment, and considering criteria for special choice. Researches carried out for the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on mood and anxiety disorders have indicated that this kind of therapy has decreased symptoms, interpersonal confusion, and social-occupational activation.[14]

Several studies reported the effect of intensive short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy on somatic disorders,[15] functional somatic syndrome,[16] chronic pains,[17] psychotherapeutic perspectives in urethral syndrome,[18] back pain,[19] chronic headache,[20] depressive disorder,[21],[22],[23],[24],[25],[26] anxiety,[27] and for reducing marriage incompatibility,[28] marital satisfaction,[29] and couples' compatibility.[30] The present study carried out to test intensive short-term psychodynamic impact on affection control of anxious women based on destructive effect of anxiety and affection control on mental health, quality of relationship, and effective married life of couples and also the positive effect of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on psychological, cognitive, and communicational factors of different people (according to literature review). There have been no other researches about intensive short-term psychodynamic impact on affection control of anxious women in Iran. This research will be pioneering in Iran.


  Methods Top


The research method was quasi-experimental and with pretest–posttest using control group. Statistical population of this study included anxious women who had referred to Consultation Centers of Esfahan in thefirst 6 months of 2016. Samples of the study were selected through convenience sampling. Three centers Aban, Aeein, and Milad-e Noor Consultation Centers were selected through convenience sampling and anxious women were identified among all patients of these centers. 47 anxious women had been referred to these three centers. By carrying out Zung Anxiety Scale on these women, it was determined that 38 women have been anxious. At the final stage, by considering research criteria (patients between 20 and 45-year-old and nonaddicted women) 30 person were selected intentionally and divided into experimental and control group randomly (fifteen women in experimental group and fifteen women in control group). Experimental group received psychodynamic intervention during 15 sessions; each lasted 60 min. Control group deprived of this treatment during the research. To follow moral principles of the research, control group were assured to receive psychodynamic intervention after research procedure.

Following assessment devices were applied in this research:

Zung self-rating anxiety scale

Zung self-rating anxiety scale (1971) is 20-item assessment device. Diagnostic criteria of this questionnaire include 5 emotional symptoms and 15 somatic symptoms. In this scale, some questions (16 questions) emphasize on positive attitude, and some (4 questions) emphasizes on negative attitude. The questions that emphasize on negative views are 5-9-13-19 and score of these questions are as follows: A little of the time (4), some of the time (3), good part of the time (2), and most of the time (1). In the Zung scale, people with less anxiety get lower score, and those who are more anxious receive higher score.[31] In this scale, the minimum score is 20 and maximum score is 80. According to the index presented by Zung, mild-to-moderate anxiety level is 45.[32]

Studies that investigated correlation between Hamilton Anxiety Scale and Zung Anxiety Scale showed that the correlation of data collected from two scales by Pearson's correlation coefficient was 71%; coherence coefficient that estimates intercorrelation or homogeneity of questions were used to calculate final Zung anxiety scale; statistical analysis of results of Zung anxiety scale estimated coherence coefficient as 0.84 that showed the high reliability of this scale.[33]

Affections control scale

Affections control scale (ACS) is an instrument measuring individual's control on his/her affection. This questionnaire was designed by Williams et al. (1997). It includes 42 questions and covers 4 items: Anger, Depressive Disorder, Anxiety, and Positive Effect. The answers are measured by a seven-level scale ranged from strongly disagree that has one point to completely agree that has seven points. Twelve items of this questionnaire (4-9-12-16-17-18-21-22-27-30-31-38) are grading conversely.[34] Therefore, strongly disagree will get seven points and completely agree get one point. Internal validity and test-retest to estimate total score of scale of a sample from students of bachelor course of study, were, respectively, 0.94 and 0.78, for anger were 0.72 and 0.73, for depressive disorder were 0.91 and 0.76; for anxiety were 0.89 and 0.77; and for positive affect were, respectively, 0.84 and 0.64. Their discriminated validity and convergence were estimated.[5] Dahesh measured the reliability coefficient of ACS. The Cronbach's alpha (α) for affection control scale estimated as 0.84, for anger subscale as 0.53, for positive affect scale as 0.60, for depressive disorder as 0.76, and for anxiety estimated as 0.64. This fact proves the ACS is a proper scale.[35]

Data were analyzed by SPSS, 23rd version (IBM Company, USA), by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation [SD]) and inferential statistics (covariance analysis).

Findings

Demographic findings showed that age range of 53.3% of participants was 25-30, 33.3% were 31-35, and 13.3% were 36-40. About 26.7% of participants had high school diploma, 26.7% had associate's degree, and 46.7% had bachelor's degree. About 40% of participants were employed and 60% were homemakers.

In [Table 1], mean and SD for total score of affection control has been reported for both groups in pretest. The scores for experimental group were 32.30 and 4.86, respectively, and for control group were 35.03 and 33.44, respectively. Furthermore, mean and SD of both groups in posttest of experimental group were 54.80 and 6.86 and control group 37.85 and 2.60, respectively.
Table 1: Description of statistical indices for scores of affections control pretest and posttest and its components in experimental and control groups (n=30)

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Before presenting the results of covariance analysis, assumptions of parametric tests were estimated. The results of Kolmogorov–Smirnov test would assess the assumption of normal distribution of data samples (P > 0.05). The assumption of homogeneity of variance was assessed by Levene's test, and its results indicated insignificance of significance and confirmed the assumption of homogeneity of variances (P > 0.05). Here, we present the results of the inferential table.

Based on the results of [Table 2], since F estimated as 20.23, is greater than F0.01 with criteria of 7.68 and degree of freedom 27; therefore, the assumption of zero is rejected. We surely conclude that (99% possibility) intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy can improve affection control in participants of experimental group and we arrive at a result that there is a significant difference between scores of experimental group and control group in posttest of affection control. Furthermore, the results showed that dynamic psychotherapy explicates 42% of change in affection control of couples.
Table 2: The results of covariance analysis for effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on affections control in both experimental and control groups

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  Discussion Top


The present study was carried out to determine the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on Affection Control of Anxious Women who referred to consultation centers of Esfahan. The results indicated that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy increased affection control in anxious women (P < 0.05). The findings of the present study and also studies of Khoryanian et al., Kramer et al., and Abbas showed that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy can be effective for affection control.[21],[30],[36] Therefore, it seems emotional behaviors are mostly affected by environment. Since this behavior is acquisitive, we can plan some instructions to achieve a balance in effects, and in this way, assist people indirectly to show their affections properly.[37]

The people experience emotions and affections in their lives, and it is natural to show different emotions in different situations. Negative and strong emotions are unusual; they are not constructive and have destructive and devastating effects.[38] Immoderation in emotions may cause incompatibility, aggressiveness, anger, aversion, depression, and anxiety which threaten mental and emotional health seriously.[39] According to gross affection, control skill occurs when a person learn how to show and control his/her affections in different situations.[40] On the other side, Dunham suggests that this skill may have various impacts on different aspects of individual's life, his/her interpersonal communication, mental health, and physical health.[7] Emotional management makes individuals, realist, optimistic, honorable, and beneficial to the society.[41]

Many defenses of anxious patient roots in their confrontation with frightening effects and emotions and the goal of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy are to confront these emotions. Psychodynamic theories of etiology and continuous of these symptoms are about self-anger and its contradictory aspects. Davanloo distinguishes anger critical for improving symptoms and effective therapy. Using “Stress” strategy for emotional experience and “Challenge” with defenses against emotional experience and also resistance to transference phenomenon provoke feelings and transference emotions, especially anger.[42] A kind of desuppression occurs for this suppressed feeling. By showing suppressed feeling, individual can overcome the feeling of being guilty, a pain that proposed “Superego,” and minimize avoiding others and reducing object relations of this kind of feeling. Davanloo emphasized on deep emotional experience and its components, and he illustrates the necessity of rational insight and considers the efficiency of emotional insight essential for deeper change.[43],[44]

Davanloo's method, based on sympathetic and confronting strategy, attempts to remove obstacles of emotional experience that display symptoms and teaches patient how to accept and control his emotions and manage them to prevent illness and stressful situations. It is expected that by receiving emotions and insight from the relation between chaotic, restraint emotions, and symptoms, the symptoms will be decreased and patient's attitude and affection control will be improved.[9]

The present study had some restrictions. Thefirst restriction was assessment of anxiety symptoms diagnosed in women by the therapist. Assessment of anxiety symptoms before and after treatment by an uninformed assessor can remove the restriction. Another restriction was limited research review for this study. There should be many researches to assign the mechanism of this treatment. Therefore, doing more researches in this field in Iran is essential. Although the results of this study showed that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy can be a suitable treatment for anxious women to control their emotions; however, some controlled, experimental, and more extensive researches should be done for after therapy situations.


  Conclusion Top


According to The Effectiveness of Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy on Affection Control of Anxious, It is suggested that this method be used in the treatment of anxiety women.

Acknowledgment

It is necessary to appreciate all staffs of Aban, Aeein, and Milad-e Noor Consultation Centers to provide facilities for sampling and holding therapy sessions. We hereby appreciate those who participate in the treatment process.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.



 
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