The effect group schema therapy on self-control and emotion regulation of notorious addicts

Addiction as a common and multifactorial disease is a debilitating disorder that is rooted in the pharmacological effect of drugs, and notorious addicts are known to be those who escape treatment. Therefore, the aim of this study was determine the effect group schema therapy on self-control and emotion regulation of notorious addicts. This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was quasi-experimental with a pretest and posttest design with an experimental and control groups. The research population was all notorious addicts of Mashhad city in 2020 year, which among them number of 30 people were selected as a sample by purposive sampling method and randomly with lottery assigned into two equal groups (each group 15 people). The experimental group trained 12 sessions of 90 minutes (on sessions peer week) with group schema therapy and the control group remained on the waiting list for training. The research tools were demographic information form, self-control questionnaire (Tangney et al, 2004) and difficulties in emotion regulation scale (Gratz and Roemer, 2004). Data were analyzed with tests of chi-square and multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS version 23 software. The findings of present research showed that the experimental and control groups did not significant difference in terms of education level and age range (P>0.05). Also, the group schema therapy led to increase self-control and decrease difficulties in emotion regulation difficulty of notorious addicts of experimental group in compare with control group (P<0.001). The results of this study indicated the effect of group schema therapy on increasing self-control and reducing difficulties in emotion regulation of notorious addicts. Therefore, counselors and therapists can use group schema therapy along with other treatment methods to improve psychological characteristics.