Clinical Psychology and Personality
Year:2010 | Volume:17 | Issue:40 (SPECIAL CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PERSONALITY 2)|Papers Count:7

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 parents' 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.

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of self-instruction techniques on reading performance of students with medium dyslexic and depression symptoms. From a sample of the students of the third and forth grades of public primary schools, 32 students were randomly selected and assigned to the two experimental and control groups. The experiment group practiced the self-instruction techniques for 12 sessions, while the students in the control group continued their ordinary school activities. In the experiment group the students' parents (i.e. mother) were also trained for six sessions to help their children at home. The data were evaluated through covariance analysis.The results indicated that the self-instruction techniques are effective on the improvement of reading performance of students and the reduction of depression symptoms. After 5 months, the results of follow up studies revealed that although student marks in the experiment group have decreased to some extent, the difference between experiment and control groups is significant.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence components (including problem solving, happiness, independence, stress tolerance, self actualization, emotional self–awareness, reality testing, interpersonal relationship, optimism, self–regard, impulse control, flexibility, social responsibility, empathy and assertiveness) with performance self–evaluation in general, technical and interpersonal domains. To this end, from 150 factories (with 11000 personnel) in Morchekhort industrial town, 35 factories, consisting of 300 individuals were randomly selected using multi–stage sampling method. The research instruments were Bar–one’s emotional intelligence questionnaire (EI with 90 items) and Motowidlo and Van Scatter’s job performance self–evaluation scale (with 6 item). The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis. The results indicated that there was a significant positive correlation between emotional intelligence components with general job performance self evaluation (from 0.303for flexibility to 0.409 for self–regard), there was also a positive correlation between emotional intelligence components with technical job Performance (from 0.167 for flexibility to 0.327 for self–regard) and the correlation between emotional intelligence components with interpersonal job performance self–evaluation was found to be positive as well. (from 0.183 for flexibility to 0.383 for optimism). In addition, the result of stepwise regression analysis revealed that self–regard, empathy, independence and impulse control for general job performance, self-regard, intepersonal relationship and reality testing for technical job performance and optimism, empathy, independents and interpersonal relationship for the interpersonal job performance have significant predictive effect (p<0.05).

The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of "Hardiness" scale for university students. The instrument used was Lang and Goulet hardiness scale, translated from English into Persian by using back-translation technique. The "Hardiness" scale for university (Shahed, Tehran & Beheshti).Factor analysis revealed three factors (control, commitment, and challenge) explained 30% of the variance. For all items of this questionnaire construct validity was (r=0.64), Internal consistency coefficient was obtained in three ways (cronbach's alpha=0.82), Test=retest reliability was r=0.71) and Split-half reliability was r=0.76). The results indicated acceptable validity and reliability of the scale as a whole and for subscales. These preliminary results provide support for using LGHS to measure hardiness levels in Iranian university students and can be used to assess the hardiness of other populations.

The aim of this survey is the recognition of self-metaphors and the qualities of metaphors either positive or negative in the families of schizophrenia patients. The research was contrastive-descriptive in which 20 families schizophrenia patients who were hospitalized in mental hospitals, were compared to 20 families of those who were mentally sound, but were demographically similar to the psychic group. The data were analyzed using "Osgood's Semantic Discrimination Test" (SDT). The result indicated that the self- metaphors of families of schizophrenia patients were more negative than the families of healthy individuals. Moreover, the results revealed that certain metaphors which were used in the families of schizophrenia patients were responsible for the disorder. However, there was no significant difference between the self-metaphors of family-members of schizophrenia patients with each other.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between Islamic religious orientation and different aspects of identity. The participants in this study were 232 female and 99 male students of different majors in Shiraz University who were selected through cluster random sampling. The revised questionnaire of "Religious Orientation" (Azarbyjani, 1382) and the fourth revised scale of "Identity Aspects AIQ-IV" (Cheek, Smith, and Troop, 2002) were used as instruments. Factor analysis was applied to the data to verify the validity. In addition, Cronbach's alpha was calculated to determine the reliability of both questionnaires. The obtained coefficients confirmed the reliability of the scales. Moreover, the results of the factor analysis, using the principle components with varimax rotation for the "Religious Orientation Scale" yielded two factors which were beliefs/rituals and ethics, respectively. In case of AIQ-IV, the results confirmed five dimensions: personal, relational, social, ethnic-national, and religious identities. The results of multiple regression of beliefs/rituals and ethics subscales on different aspects of identity revealed that the beliefs/rituals subscale was a positive predictor of religious identity. In addition, ethics subscale predicted personal and relational identity. However, it negatively predicted the religious identity.

To compare the efficacy of common drug therapy (Methadone or Boprenorphine maintenance) with a combination of neuro-feedback and drug therapy in opiate-dependant patients for overcoming opiate cravings, twenty volunteer male subjects (with the mean age of 30) participated in Methadone or Boprenorphine maintenance drug therapy. This was an experimental study with pretest-posttest design, in which "Heroin Craving Questionnaire" was administered to the sample to collect the data. Homogeneous subjects were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The former received drug therapy and neuro-feedback training, while the latter only underwent drug therapy. The training included SMR on Cz followed by an alpha-theta protocol on Pz during thirty sessions for five weeks (six sessions each week).Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that the anticipation of positive outcome, desire to abuse substance and relief from withdrawal (dysphoria) significantly decreased in the experimental group compared to the control one. It can be concluded that neure-feedback was effective on reducing the intensity of opiate craving of the addicted patients.