The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy on Stigma, Symptoms of Social Phobia and Fear of Intimacy in Divorced Women

Divorce is a phenomenon that affects divorced women’s peace of mind and can cause severe psychological damages. The aim of the present research is to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on stigma, symptoms of social phobia and fear of intimacy in divorced women in the city of Shahrekord. This study is of the experimental type with a pre-test, post-test, follow-up design and a control group. Its population consists of divorced women who went to counseling centers in Shahrekord during the three months of winter in the year 1398 and had a record there. From among these individuals, 30 were selected through purposive sampling method and were randomly placed into experimental and control groups (15 individuals each). In this research, the Stigma Questionnaire (Mirzaei et al., 1398), Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000), and Fear of Intimacy Scale (Descutner & Thelen, 1991) were implemented in the three stages of pre-test, post-test and follow-up. The data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis. The findings indicated that cognitivebehavioral group therapy is effective on reducing stigma (f = 27.45 p <0.001), reducing symptoms of social phobia (f = 4.25 p <0.001), and reducing fear of intimacy (f = 14.422 p <0.001) in divorced women. According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral intervention is one of the effective methods in improving divorced women’s psychological characteristics.