Effectiveness of existential psychotherapy on existential loneliness and attitude towards death in clients with existential depression

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 M.A. in Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

2 M.A. of General Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

3 M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Tehran West Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran.

4 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Background and purpose: Mortality caused by the epidemic of the Covid-19 virus disease and facing one of the certain facts of existence, i.e. death, increased the prevalence of existential depression. The aim of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of existential psychotherapy on existential loneliness and attitude towards death in clients with existential depression. Research method: The current research was in the applied research group in terms of its purpose and in terms of methodology, it was a semi-experimental type of pre-test - post-test - 3-month follow-up with a control group. The statistical population included all women and men with existential depression who had referred to counseling centers and psychological services in Isfahan city in the first 6 months of 2022. 24 references (13 women and 11 men) were selected by purposeful sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental (12 people) and control (12 people) groups. May and Yalom's (1989) existential psychotherapy protocol was performed only for the experimental group during 10 weekly sessions of 120 minutes, and the control group was placed on the waiting list and received free psychological counseling sessions after the end of the research. Subjects were evaluated in 3 stages (pre-test, post-test and 3-month follow-up) with the existential loneliness questionnaire by Myers, Kho and Swatberg (2002) and the revised version of the death attitude profile questionnaire by Wong, Picker and Geisser (1994). Data analysis was done with repeated measures analysis of variance using SPSS-28 software.

Keywords

Medical Journal of Mashhad university of Medical Sciences
Volume 66, Issue 4
September and October 2023

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