Effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on aggression, self-harm behaviors, and emotional self-regulation in delinquent adolescents

Adolescent delinquency is associated with a set of abnormal behavioral patterns and poor emotional self-regulation skills, including self-injurious behaviors and experiences of anger and aggression. Studies show that the components of compassion therapy in form of group therapy are effective on hope, life satisfaction and mood disorders of delinquent adolescents and also improve positive emotional cognitive regulation and increase mindfulness skills, and reduce the experience of shame and guilt in clients. Anxiety disorders, depression, and increased anxiety tolerance and decreased emotion regulation have been negative, but there is a research gap in the application of this treatment to delinquent adolescents in the target population.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on aggression, self-harm behaviors, and emotional self-regulation in juvenile delinquents of the Correction and Rehabilitation Center in Tehran.

The method of this quasi-experimental study was a pretest-posttest plan with a one-month follow-up. The statistical population of study included all clients residing in Tehran’s Correction and Rehabilitation Center in 2019; 13 people were selected from them as the sample of this research. Klonsky & Glenn inventory of statements about self-injury (ISAS), Hoffman &Kashdan emotional self-regulation questionnaire and Bass & Perry aggression questionnaire were used in pre-test, post-test, and follow-up steps; compassion-focused training program was conducted in twelve 90-minute sessions (one session per week). To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention and to control the effect of pretest, a complex analysis of variance with repeated measures was used.

The results showed that compassion-focused therapy consistently led to significant effect in reducing the symptoms of aggression and self-harm behaviors (p<0/05) and this effectiveness has been consistently continued in follow up phase. Regarding the effectiveness of compassion-based therapy on the components of emotional self-regulation, the results showed that the implementation of the independent variable improved adaptation and tolerance (p <0.05) and this effectiveness was persistent in the follow-up phase.

It can be concluded that compassion-focused therapy is effective in reducing self-harm behaviors, aggression, and improving emotional regulation in delinquent adolescents. These results can be used in planning for preventing harmful behaviors in adolescents and reducing these behaviors, especially in delinquent adolescents.