The effectiveness of mentalization-based therapy on insecure attachment, fear of intimacy and suicidal ideation in people with major depressive disorder

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mentalization-based therapy on insecure attachment, fear of intimacy and suicidal ideation in people with major depressive disorder.

The study was an experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population was all people with major depression who referred to the Agahesh clinic in Karaj in 2021. First, 30 people were selected by available sampling method and then were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (15 experimental and 15 control). The experimental group underwent 20 sessions of 90 minutes of treatment based on the mentalization adapted from Batman and Funagi (2016). During this time, the control group remained on the waiting list. Hazan and shaver (1987) Attachment Styles Questionnaire, Deskatner and Thelan (1991) Intimacy Fear Scale, and Beck et al. (1979) Suicide Thought Scale were used to collect data. The analysis of the information obtained from the questionnaires was performed through SPSS software version 24 in two parts: descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (multivariate analysis of covariance).

The results showed that psychotherapy-based therapy was able to achieve anxious insecure attachment (Sig = 0.004 and F = 10.0332), avoidant insecure attachment (Sig = 0.001 and F = 17.186), fear of intimacy (001). Significantly improve Sig = 0.02 (F = 42.649) and suicidal ideation (Sig = 0.001 and F = 26.057) (P <0.05).

It can be concluded that psychotherapy-based therapy can be used as an effective intervention to improve insecure attachment, fear of intimacy and suicidal ideation in people with major depressive disorder.