The Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Emotional Inhibition in Girls with Non-Suicidal Self-injury

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is prevalent in adolescent populations worldwide. Emotion dysregulation and emotional inhibition are believed to contribute to NSSI. This study assessed the impact of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on cognitive emotion regulation and emotional inhibition in self-injurious preadolescents.

The present semi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population of the study included all preadolescent girls with NSSI who had been referred to Tehran Counseling Center , Tehran, Iran, in 2019. A purposeful sampling method was used to select 30 preadolescent girls with NSSI for this controlled study. The participants were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (15 participants per group) to attend weekly training sessions. The data collection tools used included the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI; Gratz, 2001) and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003). The experimental group then underwent ACT (Cardaciotto, Herbert, Forman, Moitra, & Farrow, 2008) for 8 weekly 90-minute sessions, whereas the control group received no training. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software.

The results showed that ACT was effective on cognitive emotion regulation (F = 18.09; P = 0.001) and emotional inhibition (F = 21.54; P = 0.001) in self-injurious preadolescents. Univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed significant differences between the study groups in terms of cognitive emotional regulation (F = 18.09; P = 0.001) and emotional inhibition (F = 21.54; P = 0.001).

The results showed that ACT had a positive impact on cognitive emotion regulation and emotional inhibition in adolescents with NSSI.