Effectiveness of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) to Reducing Alexithymia in Women Applicant for Divorce

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy to reducing alexithymia in women applicant for divorce. The research design was based on a semi-experimental with pre-test-post-test approach and control group. The statistical population consisted of all women applicant for divorce, who referred to kermanshah city’s counseling centers in 2017. Among them, 30 people selected in the form of voluntary purposive method and randomly divided into two equal groups: an experimental group and a control group. The intervention of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy in the experimental group for 9 sessions of 60 minutes, the control group was put in the waiting list. Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) were used in the pretest and posttest for collecting information. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of covariance. The results of the research showed that after controlling the effect of pre-test, there was a significant difference between the two groups in the post-test stage alexithymia. ‌According to research results, group therapy with short-term dynamic psychotherapy seems to be effective in reducing alexithymia in women applicant for divorce. Therefore, the practice of such a treatment in divorce prevention counseling centers and social worker clinics seems necessary.

Keywords

• alexithymia
• divorce
• dynamic
• psychotherapy