Thesis:

The effectiveness of emotional schema therapy on emotion regulation strategies٫ distress tolerance٫ social problem solving and reducing risky behaviors in male adolescents

The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of emotional schema therapy on improving emotion regulation strategies, distress tolerance, social problem solving, and reducing high-risk behaviors in adolescent boys of Kashmar City. This research was semi-experimental and had a pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population included all high school (second) male students of Kashmar City in the academic year of 1402-1403. First, the study sample was selected to screen the high-risk behaviors of 100 students of the second secondary level by multi-stage cluster sampling method. Then, based on the criteria for entering people into the research, the initial sample with a high tendency to risky behaviors was identified. Finally, the final sample of 30 people was randomly selected from among them and divided into two groups of 15 people, experimental and control. Emotional schema therapy was implemented during 12 weekly one-hour sessions by a clinical expert in the experimental group, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Then, Iranian adolescents' risk-taking scale by Zadeh Mohammadi et al. (1390), emotional regulation strategies by Gross & John (2003), social problem-solving by Dzorilla et al. (2002), and distress tolerance by Simmons and Gaher (2005) were implemented on both experimental and control groups. Also, for data analysis, one-way covariance analysis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were used in SPSS version 22 software. Research findings showed that emotional schema therapy improves emotion regulation strategies, increases distress tolerance, improves social problem-solving, and reduces risky behaviors. The results show that emotional schema therapy is effective in emotion regulation strategies, distress tolerance, social problem-solving, and high-risk behaviors in adolescent boys in Kashmar

Keywords: emotional schema therapy, emotion regulation strategies, distress tolerance, social problem solving,