COMPARING EFFECTIVENESS OF GROUP EMOTION-FOCUSED COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY AND GROUP COGNITIVEBEHAVIORAL THERAPY ON CHILDREN WITH SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER

Social anxiety disorder is one of the prevalent disorders of childhood and
delayed or inappropriate treatment can cause chronicity, conversion, and comorbidity of disorder with
other psychiatric problems. Early effective interventions can yield lasting benefits for children, family,
and society. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare cognitive-behavioral (CBT) and
emotion-focused cognitive behavioral therapies' effectiveness (ECBT) on social anxiety disorder of 9-
13 year old children in Isfahan.
Materials & Methods: This experimental study included pretest, post-test and follow-up with a control
group. The study population was all 9-13 year old children with social anxiety disorder in Isfahan. The
samples were 36 children with social anxiety (18 girls and 18 boys) randomly assigned to CBT, ECBT
and control group (with no treatment). Before and after the treatment and 3 months afterwards children
were tested by SCARED (for anxiety) and CEMS (for emotional management) questionnaires. The
data were analyzed using SPSS software.
Results: The findings revealed that both treatments (CBT & ECBT) in comparison with the control
group in post-treatment and follow-up caused reduction of social and total anxiety scores and sadness
dysregulation and there was no difference between two groups. Also emotion focused therapy in
comparison to controls significantly reduced anger dysregulation and sadness inhibition, increased
sadness and anger coping, and was different with cognitive behavioral therapy (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In children with social anxiety, there is no difference between CBT and ECBT in
effecting on anxiety and sadness dysregulation, but ECBT can improve negative emotional
management (sadness and anger). So using this protocol is recommended to therapists if in addition to
anxiety, the child has problem with managing other negative emotions