The Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy on Interpersonal Needs in Women with Addiction Tendencies

Abstract

Background: Drug use and addiction continue to be prevalent issues that often lead to heightened conflicts with the legal system, reduced public health, elevated mortality rates, missed chances for education and career advancement, and an upsurge in societal harm. This study aimed to investigate the effect of narrative therapy on the interpersonal needs of women with addictive tendencies.Methods: The study employed a semi-experimental approach including a pre-test, post-test, and a two-month follow-up period, with a control group. The study population consisted of women with substance abuse and addiction hospitalized, either selfreferral or by recommendation, in Parto Ardabil, the De-addiction camp for women , located in Ardabil province, Iran in 2021- 2022. A group of 24 people were chosen through the convenience sampling technique, and randomly divided into two separate groups for experimentation and control purposes; each group consisted of 12 people. The experiment began with a group of participants engaged in eight weekly sessions of successful narrative therapy, each lasting 45 minutes. The data were collected using an Interpersonal Need Questionnaire (INQ). The pre-test and post-test data were analyzed using SPSS version 24.Results: The results showed no significant difference between the pre-test period between the two groups of Narrative therapy (37.92±8.03) and Control (37.75±10.78) in the interpersonal needs (P=0.966). Also, there was a significant difference in the posttest stage between the two groups of Narrative therapy (32.25±5.91) and Control (37.25±5.91) by controlling the pre-test score (P=0.001). Also, the results showed that the difference between the pre-test and post-test periods in the Narrative therapy group was significant (P=0.001). However, in the Control group, no difference was found between the stages of the study (P=590).Conclusions: Our reults showed that the narrative therapy approach is effective in reducing the two scales of perception of burdensomeness and neutral belongingness in the component of interpersonal needs. Narrative therapy enables clients to take charge of their personal growth and life changes, enabling patients to be the primary decision-makers in their unique life stories and reducing the therapist’s authority.

Keywords

• narrative therapy
• women
• interpersonal relations
• addiction