Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on The Difficulty of Emotional Regulation and Aggression in Female Adolescents with Depressive Symptoms

The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy on the difficulty of emotional regulation and aggression in female adolescents with depressive symptoms.

The research method of the present study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest and control group design and  follow-up period in two months. The statistical population of the present study included female adolescents with depressive symptoms who referred to education counseling centers in Babol city in the academic year of 2021-2022. 30 female adolescent with depressive symptoms were selected through purposive sampling method and randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (15 adolescent in the experimental group and 15 adolescent in the control group). The experimental group received dialectical behavior therapy (10 sessions) during 10 weeks (90 minutes). The applied questionnaires in this study included Adolescent Depression Questionnaire (Kutcher, 2002), Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) and Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992). The data were analyzed through mixed ANOVA and Bonferroni follow-up test via SPSS23 software.

The results showed that dialectical behavior therapy is effective on the difficulty of emotional regulation (F=42.50; Eta=0.60; p<0001) and aggression (F=31.83; Eta=0.53; p<0001) of female adolescents with depressive symptom.

According to the findings of the present study, dialectical behavior therapy can be used as an efficient method to decreace difficulty of emotional regulation and aggression of female adolescents with depressive disorder through employing techniques such as bearing distress ، emotional self-regulation، mindfulness and effective communication.