The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Emotion Regulation and Life Meaning of Depressed Women

The present research aimed at examining the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on emotion regulation and life meaning of depressed women. This research was Semi experimental, with pretest-posttest and control group design . Using Beck`s depression, John and Gross`s emotion regulation and Steger and et al life meaning questionnaire, 30 people of depressed women with low emotion regulation and life meaning were randomly selected and were voluntarily assigned to experimental and control groups (15 persons in each group). The experimental group received 8 sessions of Hayes`s ACT techniques (one session weekly) and the control group did not receive any intervention. After the intervention of ACT, the emotion regulation and life meaning of the members of both groups was measured again. Multivariate covariance analysis (Man Cova) was used to analyse data. Calculated F for emotional regulation and life meaning variables showed significant difference in both two groups. Generally, the findings of this study indicate that the ACT method can be an effective intervention in increasing the emotional regulation and life meaning of depressed women.