The Effectiveness of Emotion Efficacy Therapy on Fear of Negative Evaluation and Experiential Avoidance among Mothers with Autistic Children

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotional efficacy therapy on fear of negative evaluation and experiential avoidance of mothers of autistic children.

The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design. The statistical population of this research included mothers of autistic children who were referred to Dasthaye Mehrabani School (Darya) in Isfahan in 2022. Thirty mothers were selected by purposive sampling method based on the entry and exit criteria and randomly replaced in two intervention and control groups (15 people in each group). Both groups before and after the intervention and 2 months later, in the follow-up phase, were given research tools including the short version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale by Larry (1983) and the Experiential Avoidance Scale - the second version of Bund et al (2011). The experimental group was treated based on emotion efficacy therapy in 8 sessions of 2 hours, but no intervention was done in the control group.

The findings showed that the treatment based on emotion efficacy therapy was effective on fear of negative evaluation, and experiential avoidance, and the effect of this change remained stable until the follow-up stage (p<0.05).

Emotion efficacy therapy can be used to reduce the fear of negative evaluation and experiential avoidance among mothers with autistic children.