The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Anger and Psychological Well-Being of Aggressive Girls

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on anger and psychological well-being of aggressive girls. The research methodology was semi-experimental with pretest and posttest design with control group. The statistical population of study included all the prisoners in the women’s ward of the Central Prison in Ardabil, Iran, in the year 2014. Total of 30 participants with high scores on Spielbergers’ state-trait anger expression inventory were selected using simple random sampling. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 persons each). The experimental group received 8 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Spielbergers’ state-trait anger expression inventory and psychological well-being questionnaire were used to gather data. Collected data was analyzed by multivariable co-variance test. Findings indicated that cognitive-behavioral therapy seemed to have an effect on anger and psychological well-being of aggressive girls, such that the participants in the experimental group showed significantly lowered levels of anger and higher psychological well-being when compared with those in the control group. Therefore, it can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral therapy seems to have a significant effect by decreasing the level of anger and to increase the psychological well-being in girls with high levels of aggressiveness.