Effectiveness of Compassion-focused Therapy on Psychological Flexibility recovery and Self-criticism decrease in Mothers with Mentally Retarded Children

Mothers with mentally retarded children are exposure to many psychological problems, including low flexibility and self-criticism, and it seems that strengthening compassion can help them to overcome these shortcomings. This study was conducted aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on psychological flexibility recovery and self-criticism decrease in mothers with mentally retarded children in a quasi-experimental design of pretest, posttest, and follow-up with one experimental group and one control group. The population of this study included all mothers with mentally retarded children in exceptional schools of Ghaemshahr city. 30 mother with mentally retarded children were selected using purposeful sampling method and assigned randomly in two experimental group (n =15) and control group (n = 15). The experimental group participants participated in eight of treatment session compassion-focused therapy and the control group participants not received any intervention. The participants in each two group were assessed the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory and Levels of Self Criticism Scale in pretest, posttest, and follow-up stages. Data were analyzed using analysis of repeated-measures variance, and SPSS-22 statistical software. The results indicated that compassion-focused therapy was effective in psychological flexibility improve and self-criticism reduce in the experimental group participants compared to the control group participants, Therefore, in the context of designing effective interventions in reducing psychological damages in mothers with mentally retarded children can be used of compassion-focused therapy to psychological flexibility recovery and self-criticism decrease.