Comparing the effectiveness of treatment based on bioenergy economy approach and cognitive-behavioral therapy on emotional regulation of women

Introduction: Emotions and emotion regulation play a significant role in interpersonal relationships, especially in marital life.. Aim: The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of therapy based on the bio-energy economy approach and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) on emotion regulation in women. Method: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design, along with a control group. The population of this study consisted of married women aged 20 to 40 years who visited counseling centers in District 7 of Tehran in 2022. From this population, 45 women were selected using convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to two intervention groups and one control group. The research instrument was the Gratz and Roemer Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (2004). The experimental groups received eight sessions of bio-energy economy therapy and eight sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 25, and repeated measures ANOVA was used, with a significance level of 0.05. Results: Data analysis showed that both cognitive-behavioral therapy and bio-energy economy therapy significantly improved the ability to regulate emotions (P < 0.05). The results of the Bonferroni post-hoc test indicated that the effects of both treatments were stable during the follow-up period (P < 0.05). Moreover, bio-energy economy therapy had a greater impact than cognitive-behavioral therapy on the components of difficulty in impulse control, lack of emotional clarity, and the overall score of emotion regulation (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Bio-energy economy therapy is a more effective method for improving emotion regulation compared to cognitive-behavioral therapy. It is suggested that this approach be used in treating emotional regulation disorders.