Comparison of the Effect of Narrative Therapy and Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy on Body Dysmorphic Concern and Depression in Women with Breast Surgery Experience: A Four-month Follow-up

The mastectomy increases the chance of body dysmorphic concern and depression among women, which can impair their functioning. This study aimed to compare the effect of narrative therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy on the body dysmorphic concern and depression in women with breast surgery experience.

This quasi-experimental study had a pretest-posttest design and a follow-up. The statistical population included mastectomized women in Tabriz, Iran undergoing radiotherapy, who were selected by available sampling and randomly divided into three experimental and control groups in 2018. Data collection tools were body image concern inventory and Beck’s depression inventory. Members of both experimental groups received treatment in eight sessions of 1.5 hours. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 24 using repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test.

The posttest results showed that the score of body dysmorphic concern decreased in the narrative therapy and emotional behavior therapy groups, compared to the control group, and the depression score decreased in the mentioned groups, compared to the control group. In the follow-up, the effect of narrative therapy on the body dysmorphic concern (23.50) and depression (16.60) and the effect of emotional behavior therapy on body dysmorphic concern (49.50) and depression (16.90) was sustainable. However, narrative therapy had a higher impact on body dysmorphic concern, compared to raitonal emotional behavior therapy, in the posttest stage.

Narrative therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy resulted in release from metanarratives and change of irrational beliefs, which led to decreased body dysmorphic concern and depression in women with breast surgery. Therefore, these methods could be used as effective clinical interventions for these patients.