Effectiveness of individual metaphor therapy in irrational beliefs of substance abuse dependents

Dependency on substance abuse is a chronic, progressive and destructive disease. The effective psychological on patients beliefs have important role in treatment of this disease. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the effect of the individual metaphor therapy in the irrational beliefs of dependents.
This study used a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. The population of the study included all the opioids dependents referred to the MMT centers in Kermanshah, Iran (Spring 2014). Random cluster sampling was conducted and 38 patients were randomly selected to be assigned to either the experimental group or the control one. Millon Multidimensional Personality Inventory and Jones Irrational Beliefs Questioner were utilized as a measurement tool and an individual metaphor therapy as an intervention for experimental group. To compare the differences between the pre and post-intervention scores, a MANOVA was run using SPSS 20.
The results of the study revealed that the metaphor therapy is significantly effective in reducing "the need of demand for approval", "high self-expectation", "frustration reactivity", " anxious over concern", and " perfectionism" (P It seems that the metaphor therapy can neutralize the patient’s reactions without increasing the anxiety and help the patient through the creation of awareness or reframing his condition, it is suggested to use this therapy for the treatment of cognitive restructuring.