Comparing effectiveness of Interpersonal Psychodynamic and Emotional-Focused group intervention on female adolescent's attachment style

Aim: The purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of group intervention of Psychodynamic Interpersonal versus Emotional-Focused Therapy on adolescent girls’ insecure attachment style.
Research method was experimental with control group and pre-test, post-test and follow-up design. The statistical population included 27641 adolescent girls aged 15-17 in 82 secondary high schools of Shiraz City in 2016-2017 academic year. Using random cluster sampling method, educational districts one and three were chosen, and seven high schools were selected from aforementioned districts. Afterward, according to research criteria, 45 adolescents who scored highest on the avoidance or ambivalence insecure attachment style, based on Collins and Read’s Attachment Style Scale 1994 were randomly assigned to three groups. Tasca, Mikail & Hewitt’s (2005) Psychodynamic Interpersonal Group Therapy in sixteen 90 minutes sessions, and Robinson, Maccague & Whissell’s (2014) Emotional-Focused Group Therapy in eight 90 minutes sessions. Data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis of variance.
Results showed that, both interventions are effective on avoidance (F= 69.86, P= 0.001) and ambivalence (F= 52.31, P= 0.001) attachments but there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of the two groups. This effectiveness remained constant after a three month follow up. Nevertheless, the effect of psychodynamic intervention on avoidance attachment was more apparent.
Since, Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy seems to have an effect on defective relationship patterns and Emotional-Focused therapy seems to help the regulation of emotional processing patterns and thus promote interpersonal functioning, both interventions can be used as effective methods to solve problems caused by insecure attachment in adolescent girls.