The Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Reducing the Anxiety of Female Teenagers of Tehran City

The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)” in reducing symptoms of anxiety in adolescent girls in Tehran. 30 girls of 14 and 18 years of age, who were referrers to the Ertebat ,Hamdardi ,Movaffaghiat Psychology Center of Tehran because of symptoms of anxiety, were selected and randomly assigned to a test group and a control group each one including 15 patients. The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Protocol of 12 sessions were conducted on the experimental group. The control group received no intervention. The research method used in the study was the pretest- posttest semi-experimental method with the control group. To measure the symptoms of anxiety in the study, the dass-42 questionnaires were used and to analyze the data the SPANQVA test was applied. The data analysis results indicated the effectiveness of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in reducing the adolescent girls’ symptoms of anxiety. The results indicate that the improvement of psychological flexibility which is the major component of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has a considerable effect on the dependent variable.