Effectiveness of Brief Empathic Dynamic Psychotherapy on Emotional Expression and Reduction of Anxious Attachment Style in Students.

Aim: Emotional expressiveness and attachment styles are among the psychological variables that may have so great importance in different groups in terms of psychological pathology and the effect of psychological therapies on these variables should be considered. In this regard, the aim of this study was to present the effectiveness of brief empathic dynamic psychotherapy on emotional expression and attachment style due to anxiety among Amol students. Method: The research design was experimental studies with quasi-experimental design and pre-test-post-test with control group. The statistical population of the study included all students of Amol universities in the first half of the academic year 2018-2019. In the first step, 100 students were selected by Convenience Sampling Method. And King and Ammons (1990) emotional expression questionnaires and Hazen and Sheaver (1987) adult attachment scale were applied to them. People who the received higher scores from the cutting point according to the inclusion criteria and they were selected as the sample. And were randomly divided into two groups of 12 experimental and control. The experimental group received short-term Psychotherapy with empathetic approach (Seruya, 1997) for 12 sessions (one 45-minute session per week for 12 weeks). Then post-test was performed for both groups. Data were analyzed by analysis of covariance and SPSS 20 software. Result: The results showed that in the posttest stage, there is a significant difference between the score of positive emotion expression(F(1,21)= 4.78, p=0.04, Eta=0.201), negative emotion expression(F(1,21)= 4.78, p=0.04, Eta=0.204) and intimacy(F(1,21)= 5.364, p=0.03, Eta=0.22), anxiety attachment(F(1,21)= 8.81, p=0.007, Eta=0.296), experimental and control groups. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it can be concluded that brief empathic dynamic psychotherapy is effective for increasing positive emotion expression, reducing negative emotion expression and increasing intimacy and reducing students' anxious attachment style, so using this method to psychotherapists recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]