Comparison of Effectiveness of Transactional Analysis, Exposure and Response Prevention and Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy on Students' Academic Anxiety

Academic anxiety is the anxiety that occurs duringstudent learning and is the most important type of anxiety in adolescence. This study aimed to compare the effects of transactional analysis, exposure and response prevention, and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on reducing academic anxiety among students in Tehran.

The present study was a semi-experimental pre-test and post-test with the control group. The statistical population of this study was all male students of second-grade high school in Tehran. 60 subjects were selected by purposive sampling method and were placed in three experimental groups and one control group (each group=15). Data were collected using Phillips Anxiety Test. Data analysis was performed by multivariate and univariate analysis of covariance by SPSS software version 22.

The results of exposure and response prevention and the intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy were effective in reducing students' anxiety (P<0.001).The effect of intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy treatment on reducing students' anxiety was more than exposure and response prevention treatment, as the adjusted mean of the intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy group was lower than the adjusted mean of the exposure and response prevention group (P<0.001).Considering that the mean difference between the transactional analysis group and the control group was not significant, it can be said that the transactional analysis treatment was not effective in reducing students' academic anxiety.

The resultsof this study show that all three treatments of transactional analysis, exposure and response prevention, and the intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy can be effective in reducing anxiety symptoms in students, but their effectiveness is different. The most effective treatment was the intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy, and the least effective method was transactional analysis.In explaining this finding, it can be stated that in the intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy method all the existential aspects of the conscious and non-conscious person are explored, and the person becomes mastered, it has had more effect.