The Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Increasing the Self-Compassion, Distress Tolerance, and Emotion Regulation in Students with Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety is one of the most debilitating anxiety disorders that cause incompatibility in personal life, social interactions, and professional. This study was to investigate the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on increasing self-compassion, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation in students with social anxiety disorder.

This study was a semi-experimental research with pretest-posttest control group design. The statistical population included all female secondary school students with social anxiety disorder in Tehran in 2016, among them 60 were selected and randomly divided into the experimental and control groups (30 per group). Social anxiety questionnaire (Connor et al., 2000), self-compassion scale (Norbala, 2013), distress tolerance scale (Simon et al., 2005), and emotion regulation scale (Garnfex et al., 2001) were used to gather the data. The experimental group underwent 8 sessions of commitment and acceptance therapy. Finally, the data were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance.

Results of the study showed that commitment and acceptance therapy had a significant effect on reducing the social anxiety and increasing the self-compassion, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation of the students. Also, results of covariance analysis showed that commitment and acceptance therapy had a significant effect on reducing social anxiety (F = 288.817, η = 0.535, p <0.05) and increasing the total self-compassion (F=149.196, η=0.62 ، p<0.05), distress tolerance (F = 352.88, η = 0.56, p <0.05) and emotion regulation (F = 185.842, η = 0.57, p <0.05).

Based on the findings of this research, it can be concluded that by acceptance and commitment therapy, the students are taught to deal with the social anxiety through increasing the mental and subjective acceptance of the inner experiences rather than mentally avoiding the social thoughts and situations. Also, active and effective confrontation with the thoughts and feelings, changing attitudes to self, and review of life values and objectives are among the main effective factors of acceptance and commitment therapy.