The Effect of Cognitive-Humanistic Group Therapy on Depression and Purpose in Life of the Depressed Female Students

Havingmeaning or purpose-in-life (PIL) is one of the characteristics of mental health. Studies have shown that depressed subjects are weak in meaning and PIL. Therefore, it seems necessary that promotion of meaning and PIL be taken into account in their treatment. Cognitive-Humanistic Therapy (CHT) is one of the newapproaches toward depression, which is recently offered by R. Nelson-Jones, but it has not yet been widely investigated. This method of treatment consists of two parts of Life Skills Therapy (LST) and Mental Discipline Therapy (MDT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect ofcognitive-humanistic group therapy on the severity of depression symptoms and PIL questionnaire’s scores in female students in Isfahan University. 24 female students were randomly selected among those referring to the Counseling Center of Isfahan University. At the next stage, these students were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. Then the BDI and the Crumbaugh & Ma holicks PIL quest io nna ires we re administered as the pre-test for both groups. After that, 10 sessions of group therapy were conducted for the experimental group. Immediately after the last session, and also 15 days later, the same test was administered to both groups as the post-test and the follow-up. The results of the analysis of covariance showed that CHT had significantly decreased the sever ity of de pressive symptoms in the experimental group as compared to the control grou p in the post-test and follow-up phases (p<0.00). The effect of CHT on the PIL scores in the post-test was not sign ificant, but the difference between the two groups was significant in terms of PIL scores in the follow-up phase (p<0.50).