Emotion-focused family therapy with families in Iran: effects on parental fear, self-blame and self-efficacy

This study, the first of its kind in Iran, evaluated the effectiveness of a two-day Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) group workshop among Iranian mothers of adolescents aged 12–17 years, aimed at reducing fear and self-blame and increasing self-efficacy. During the pandemic, we recruited mothers struggling with their adolescents’ behavior (e.g. aggression, withdrawal, or refusal to talk). Participants matched for age and presenting issue were randomly assigned to experimental (18) or no-treatment control (18) condition. The experimental condition involved an intensive two-day EFFT training workshop (delivered either in person, n = 11, or online, n = 7) to help mothers more effectively manage their child’s challenging behaviors. All mothers (both experimental and control) completed two self-report measures, the Caregiver Traps Scale (CTS) and the Parental Self-Agency Measure (PSAM), pre- and post-intervention. Results included significant reductions in maternal fear and self-blame on the CTS in the experimental group (d = .77) but little or no pre-post change in the control group (−.02). Reported maternal self-efficacy on the PSAM improved somewhat (but not significantly) in the experimental group (.29); there was no change in the control group (−.05). Post hoc analyses indicated significant pre-post improvement for in-person (mean d = .86) but not online delivery (.16).