Effectiveness of Cognitive-Analytic Therapy on Improving Intolerance of Uncertainty & Decreasing Worry and Experimental Avoidance in Patients with obsessive compulsive disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a serious and debilitating. There is comorbidity between this disorder and various psychological factors. The aim of the present research was to examining the effectiveness of cognitive-analytic therapy on improving intolerance of uncertainty & decreasing worry and experimental avoidance in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder.

This research is a quasi-experimental one with pretest-posttest design and control group. The research population includes all the patients with obsessive disorder who referred to counseling and social working centers of Mashhad in 2018. From among the population, 30 people were selected by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to experimental 15 people and control 15 people groups. The people in the experimental group received cognitive-analytic therapy for eight 90-minute sessions (two sessions a week). Data collection was done by using intolerance of uncertainty scale (IUS), worry and experiential avoidance questionnaires. Data analysis was done by multivariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Findings of the research that shows, there is a significant difference between the posttest scores of experimental and control groups in terms of the variables of intolerance of uncertainty, worry and experiential avoidance.

Cognitive-analytic therapy is effective in improving intolerance of uncertainty & decreasing worry and experiential avoidance in patients with obsessive compulsory disorder. According to the results of this study, it is suggested that psychologists and psychotherapists use this treatment as an effective intervention to reduce the psychological problems of patients with obsessivecompulsive disorder.