The Effectiveness of Compassionate Mind Therapy Training Techniques on Perfectionism and Guilt Feeling in Female Adolescents With Obsessive - Compulsive Disorder

The main characteristics of Obsessive –Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are unwanted, repetitive, and intrusive thoughts, as well as repetitive and disturbing systematical behaviors that are performed to avoid anxiety or neutralize obsessive thoughts. Obstructive patterns of perfectionism and inflexibility are characteristic of patients with OCD. Perfectionism is defined as a set of highly desirable criteria for performance and is associated with extreme critical evaluation. Perfectionism has consequences such as depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and guilt feeling. Compassionate therapy is one of the postmodern treatments and a behavioral approach. This treatment is based on physiological (psycho –neural) principles. Many studies have found self –compassion as a strong predictor of mental health promotion. Among the characteristics of patients with OCD are endemic patterns of perfectionism and rigidity. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassionate therapy on perfectionism and guilt feeling in female adolescents with OCD living in Yazd City, Iran.

This research method was quasi –experimental with a pretest –posttest design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of all female secondary high school students in Yazd who were studying in the 2016 –2017 academic year. The sample consisted of 30 female high school students with OCD. They were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The number of students in each group was 15. In the experimental group, students were trained in self –improvement techniques. However, these techniques were not taught to the control group. The study data were collected using Obsessive –Compulsive Inventory–Revised (Foa et al., 2002), Ahwaz Perfectionism Scale (Najarian et al., 1999), and Guilt Inventory (Kugler & Jones, 1992). The experimental group was treated with compassionate therapy techniques in eight sessions, but the control group did not receive any intervention. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics, including an analysis of covariance in SPSS software. The level of significance was considered 0.05.

The results showed that by removing the effect of pretest scores, teaching compassion therapy techniques significantly reduced the scores of perfectionism (p<0.001) and guilt (p=0.003) in the experimental group compared to the control group.

Based on the research findings, the techniques of compassionate mind therapy can be used as a practical approach to reducing perfectionism and the guilt of female adolescents with OCD.