Existential therapy versus acceptance and commitment therapy for feelings of loneliness and irrational beliefs in male prisoners

Today’s people live in a society with many dangers to their peace and security. The effectiveness of different therapies in psychological variables needs to be evaluated to reach the most precise therapies based on research evidence. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of existential therapy (ET) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in alleviating the loneliness and irrational beliefs of male prisoners. In the present quasi-experimental study, the statistical population consisted of all married male prisoners aged between 25 to 45 years in Mashhad Central Prison in the first half of 2017. Among the statistical population, 36 people were selected and then randomly placed in three research groups. The two experimental groups underwent eight separate intervention sessions, ET, and ACT. At the beginning and end of the study, all of the three groups were evaluated by a research questionnaire, including the loneliness scale. The results of data analysis showed that, in comparison with the control group, the changes in the other two groups under ET and ACT were significant as to the feeling of loneliness and irrational beliefs of prisoners. However, there was no significant difference between the effects of these two treatments. The present research was limited in the case of examining the follow-up stage due to lack of access and cooperation of the subjects, incorporating some control variables (such as the history of substance use and psychiatry), and employing other evaluation methods (e.g., interview). It is highly suggested that future research should address these limitations.

Editor's Note: Garuba, I. O. (2019). The Ageing Poet and Death Anxiety: Art as Existential Therapy in John Pepper Clark’s "Of Sleep and Old Age". English Studies at NBU, 5(2), 268-283. DOI: 10.33919/esnbu.19.2.5

For the benefit of our readers, we are publishing this Editor's Note to assert that the version published on 30 December 2019 in English Studies at NBU, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2019, is the authoritative and only version of record.

The worldview attitudes of an existential psychotherapist (based on the seminar of Rimas Kociunas “The picture of human life and the therapeutic process: introduction of an existential psychotherapist”)

The article is a description of Rimas Kociunas’ seminar “The picture of human life and the therapeutic process: the introduction of an existential psychotherapist”, held in Moscow from February 13 to 16, 2020. The seminar was devoted to the study of the basic philosophical principles of existential psychotherapy on which work with a client is based. A specificity of existential therapy is the lack of specific technical methods and methods of working with a client, therefore the content of therapeutic work is determined by a particular vision of a person and his problems. From the point of view of existential therapists, the personality is in constant interaction with the world, the result of which is continuous formation; therefore, instead of studying the qualities and structures of the personality, one should study its life world and ways of building relationships with reality.