The Effectiveness of Group Schema Therapy on Adjusting Early Maladaptive Schema Among Depressed Women

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of group schema therapy with regard to moderating early maladaptive schemas among depressed women. All depressed women in Marvdasht were the population studied through an applied pre-test and post-test design. 20 depressed women were selected using random sampling and were further assigned to control and experimental groups randomly. Schema therapy, the independent variable, was performed on experimental group in the course of 10 sessions, each session taking 120 minutes. To collect data, Beck depression questionnaire and Young schema questionnaire (short form) were employed. Results of t-test showed significant differences between the control and experimental groups pointing to the effectiveness of the group therapy approach. Moreover, the effect of group schema-based approach on reducing the early maladaptive schemas was verified in all cases. In other words, group schema therapy was significantly effective in reducing maladaptive schemas in some dimensions as disconnection, rejection, other-directedness, and over-vigilance