Efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy on fear of intimacy and selfcriticism in women working in Welfare Institute of Kerman

Introduction: This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on fear of intimacy and self-criticism in women working in welfare Institute of Kerman City. Method: It was a quasi-experimental study including a pre-test, post-test, and one-month follow-up with a control group. Among all the working women in this institute, 50 women were recruited via convenience sampling method and were randomly put in experimental and control group. The experimental group received eight sessions of ACT, while the control group received no intervention. Covariance analysis were used for analyzing the data using SPSS software. Results: Our results showed that the self-criticism and the fear of intimacy were reduced in the experimental group after eight sessions of ACT. This finding was still significant in the one-month follow up (P < 0/05).Conclusion: The results showed that the ACT group training can be effective to modify the self-criticism and fear of intimacy