Effectiveness of gestalt play therapy in decreasing social phobia

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Maryam Farahzadi ¹ , Mehdi Zare Bahramabadi ² , Mohammad Ali Mohammadifar ³

1 - MA in Clinical Psychology
2 - PhD The Center for Research and Development in Humanities
3 - PhD Semnan University

Received: 2015-06-03 Accepted : 2015-06-03 Published : 2011-06-22

Keywords: Gestalt play therapy, Social phobia, Fourth grade students,

Abstract :

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Gestalt play therapy in decreasing social phobia of fourth grade students. In order to select participants, two girls schools of the 2nd educational district of Tehran were selected by cluster random sampling method. Then, the teachers completed the social phobia items of the Child Symptom Inventory (CSI-4; Gadow, & Sparfkin, 1994). Based on teachers' reports, 12 students (M=11) were selected and assigned randomly to two equally experimental and control groups. The research design was pretest - posttest control group. The experimental group received 10 sessions of Gestalt play therapy (90 minutes a week) in groups. After 10th session, the teachers completed the social phobia items of the Child Symptom Inventory for both groups. Data were analyzed using covariance analyses. The results indicated that Gestalt play therapy was effective on decreasing the scores of the diagnosing and the severity factors of social phobia symptoms in the posttest phase.