M.A. Thesis:

the Effectiveness of existential psychotherapy in a group way on guilty feelings and social adjustment of mothers with mentally retarded children in Sabzevar

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the group-based existential psychotherapy on guilty feeling and social adjustment of mothers with mentally retarded children. The research method was a pre-test-post-test design with an unequal control group. The statistical population of this study included all mothers with mentally retarded children who their children were studying in Sabzevar schools in 2017-2018. From this statistical population, 40 mothers with mentally retarded children were randomly selected through voluntary and available methods and divided into two experimental and control groups. The research tools consisted of Self-Conscious Affect scale (Zoo-Tangney-Tosca) and Bell's social adjustment questionnaire (Bell-1962). The experimental group received group-based existential psychotherapy during 8 sessions of 90 minutes (weekly one session), while the control group did not receive any intervention. After the completion of the sessions, both groups were subjected to post-test. The results of the study showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups of control and experiment in the sense of guilt and social adjustment and group-based existential psychotherapy has been effective in reducing feelings of guilt and increasing social adjustment in mothers with mentally retarded children.

Keywords: existential psychotherapy, guilty feeling, social adjustment