Acceptance and commitment therapy on perfectionism and emotion regulation in obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder is one of the most common personality disorders in the general population. The main character of this disorder is a concern for order, perfectionism and reduced flexibility. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the third wave of behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, on improving emotion regulation and reducing perfectionism as the main symptoms of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.

This was a semi–experimental research with pre–test post–test design and follow–up. The study population was all clients who were referred to a therapist due to having different personality problems in the year 2017. After the diagnosis of obsessive–compulsive disorder, 30 subjects were selected and assigned to two groups of experiment and control. The experimental group was treated with ACT for 8 sessions of 60 minutes (one session per week for a total of 2 months). Data were analyzed using variance analysis with repeated measures and Bonferoni test in the SPSS software.

The results showed that the therapeutic effect on the perfectionism (p=0.002) and emotion regulation (p=0.009) of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder was significant. However, the study of the effect size showed that the ACT therapy was effective on perfectionism (Eta=35.2), and on the emotional regulation (Eta=25.9). Meanwhile, a one–month follow–up of the results showed sustainability of these results.

According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that ACT therapy as an emerging therapeutic method had a high effect on the main components of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.