Comparing of the Effectiveness of Child-Centered Play Therapy and Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) on the Affective Style in Children with Separation Anxiety Disorder

Aims: The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy and (CPRT) on the affective styles in children suffering from separation anxiety disorder. Method: The research method was semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test and control groups. The statistical population of this study consisted of all female students with separation anxiety in the fifth and sixth grades of primary schools in city of Babol, of whom 45 of these students were selected via random sampling, and were randomly divided into three groups: experimental group-1, experimental group-2 and control group. The first experimental group received child-centered play therapy with Axline approach in sixteen 45-minute sessions, and the second experimental group were taught (CPRT) ten 2-hour sessions. The research instruments were questionnaire (form d) of the children Symptoms Inventory (Sprafkin, Lani & Gadow, 1994) and the Affective Style Questionnaire (Hofmann & Kashdan, 2010) . Covariance was used to analyze the data. Findings: The results showed that both interventions play an effective role in improving the affective styles in children with separation anxiety disorder. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the effectiveness of (CPRT) and child-centered play therapy and the (CPRT) was more effective in improving the affective styles there (p< 0/05). Conclusions: CPRT training can be considered as a more suitable alternative in improving the affective styles as well as in improving the psycho-cognitive symptoms of children with separation anxiety disorder.