The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Group Therapy in Social Phobia of Students

Introduction: Acceptance and commitment therapy is a third generation behavior therapy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment group therapy in social phobia of students. Methods: This investigation is an experimental study. Twenty students with social phobia were selected based on clinical interview and social phobia and anxiety inventory from Shomal University of Amol and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Acceptance and commitment group therapy was administered to the experimental group in ten 90- minute sessions and control group did not receive any therapy. Pretest, posttest and one-month fallow up scores of the two groups were analyzed by multiple analyses of variance and independent t-test.Results: The result of analyses showed that in final of treatment social anxiety score of experimental group significantly decreased (P<0.05)and in one-month fallow up did not significantly differ (P>0.05).Conclusion: Acceptance and commitment group therapy is effective in the treatment of social phobia of students.