Efficacy of Child-Oriented Unified Trans-Diagnostic Treatment for Alexithymia in Divorce-Engaged Children with Emotional Self-Regulation Difficulties

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the efficacy of child-oriented unified trans-diagnostic treatment for Alexithymia in divorce-engaged children with emotional self-regulation difficulties. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test, post-test, and two-month follow-up period. The statistical population of the present study consisted of female divorced children (9 to 12 years old) with difficulty in emotional self-regulation who attended primary school in Tehran during the academic year 2021-22. 26 female children of divorced parents with difficulties in emotional self-regulation were selected using a purposive sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups of 13 children each. The experimental group received ten sixty-five-minute sessions of unified trans-diagnostic treatment intervention geared toward children over the course of two months. In this study included Children’s Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and Alexithymia Questionnaire (AQ) were applied as questionnaires. The data were analyzed using SPSS-23 and the mixed ANOVA method. The findings revealed that the child-focused Unified Trans-Diagnostic Treatment has a significant effect on Alexithymia and emotional self-regulation in divorce-engaged children with difficulties in emotional self-regulation (p<0.001). Identifying emotions, teaching emotional awareness, cognitive reevaluation, identifying emotion avoidance models, and examining behaviors resulting from emotions were found to be effective in decreasing alexithymia in divorce-engaged children with difficulty in emotional self-regulation.

Keywords

• alexithymia
• child-oriented unified trans-diagnostic treatment
• difficulty in emotional self-regulation
• divorce-engaged children