The Efficacy of Structural Family Therapy in the Treatment of Children's Anxiety Disorders

The present study aims at investigating the efficacy of “Structural Family Therapy” on treating children's "Separation Anxiety" through altering the family structure, and reducing parent's conflicts.Adopting a quasi- experimental method, the researcher performed pretest-posttest intervention and multivariate repeated measures. Forty families with at least one child suffering from Anxiety disorders were randomly assigned to two equal experimental and control groups. The experimental group received similar treatment to the control group for nine sessions. In addition, the above mentioned groups participated in a follow-up session six weeks after the last intervention. Then a multi-modal assessment of anxiety was performed including Spence's "Children's Anxiety Scale" and a diagnostic interview based on DSM-IV-TR criteria (2000). Where as, the control group was kept intact. The results revealed that the “Structural Family Therapy” is efficient in reducing children's Anxiety disorders (at p<0.005) such as obsessive-compulsive, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, and fear of injury.