Comparison the Effectiveness of “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans diagnostic Treatment” on Emotional Expression and Fear of Intimacy in Children of Divorce

Divorce exposes adolescent children to severe physical, emotional, and social crises. Methods of reducing health-related problems include “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans Diagnostic Treatment”. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans Diagnostic Treatment” on emotional expression and fear of intimacy in children of divorce.

Present study was a semi-experimental with pretest and posttest design with control group. The research population was children of divorce referring to the psychological service clinics of Bandar Abbas city in year of 2019. Number of 51 people were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into three groups (each group 17 people). The research instrument was including the demographic form, “Emotional Expression Questionnaire” and “Descutner and Thelen Fear of Intimacy Scale”. The experimental groups received 10 sessions of 70 minutes with the methods of “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans Diagnostic Treatment”, respectively and the control group didn’t received training. Data were analyzed in SPSS.19 software.

The methods of “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans Diagnostic Treatment” in comparison to the control group led to increase emotional expression and decrease fear of intimacy in children of divorce (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference between the two methods in increasing emotional expression and decreasing fear of intimacy (P>0.05).

Both “Cognitive Behavioral Treatment” and “Unified Trans Diagnostic Treatment” were effective in improving emotional health-related characteristics, especially increased emotional expression and decreased fear of the intimacy of children of divorce. Therefore, health experts and therapists can use the methods to increase emotional expression and decrease fear of intimacy.