Comparing the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Metacognitive Therapy on Anger Indicators in Patients with Anxiety Disorders

One of the common emotions in people suffering from mood and anxiety disorders is anger syndrome. The main concern for those suffering from anxiety disorders whose performance in various activities is impaired is self-harming anger and sometimes suicide. This research was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and metacognitive therapy on anger indicators in patients with anxiety disorders.

Methods and Materials:

 It was a semi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test and three-month follow-up design. All the patients with anxiety disorders referred to specialized psychological centers in Tehran city in 2022 constituted the statistical population of the study. 45 people were selected by purposeful sampling method and replaced by random assignment in three equal groups of 15 people. respectively, cognitive-behavioral therapy (Leahy et al., 2009) and metacognitive therapy (Wells and Fisher, 2015) were applied in 10 sessions, 1 session per week and each session for 1 hour in the subjects of the experimental groups. but the control group did not receive treatment intervention. In addition to the demographic information checklist, researcher-made form, data collection was done with state-trait aggression questionnaire. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics, mixed analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test with SPSS statistical software number 26.

The results showed that both cognitive-behavioral therapy and metacognitive therapy were effective in reducing symptoms of state anger, trait anger, and occurrence of anger and increasing symptoms of anger control at the end of treatment and after a three-month follow-up. the three-month follow-up results of the interventions also showed the stability of the treatment. also, the results of Bonferroni's post hoc test showed that cognitive-behavioral therapy has been more effective in improving the scores of anger indicators in patients with anxiety disorders than metacognitive therapy (P<0.05).

Based on this, it can be stated that both cognitive-behavioral and metacognitive methods are beneficial in improving anger indicators in people with anxiety disorders. Also, the existence of the behavioral activation session can be the reason for the superiority of cognitive-behavioral therapy.