Comparing the Effectiveness of Compassion-focused Therapy and Short-term Solution-focused Therapy on Self-esteem and Aggression in Female Adolescents with Self-injurious Behaviors

Background: Self-injury is one of the problems that causes many psychological and social harms.Its prevalence in adolescents is very high and it has become a serious problem.The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) with Short-Term Solution-Focused Therapy (STSFT) on self-esteem and aggression in female adolescents with self-injurious behaviors.Methods: This study was quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with a control group design.The study population included all female students with self-injurious behaviors attending the second high school level in the 1402-1403 (2024) academic year in Tabriz City.A total of 45 people were selected using a nonrandom purposeful sampling method and randomly divided into three groups (15 participants each).Members of the compassion-focused therapy group and the shortterm solution-focused therapy group received their specific intervention in 8 and 6 sessions of 1.5 hours each.The control group received no treatment.Both groups completed the Cooper Smith (1976) 58-question self-esteem questionnaire and Buss and Perry (1992) 29-question aggression questionnaire, before, after, and 4 months after the intervention.Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc tests using SPSS-26 software.Results: There was no significant difference between the scores of self-esteem and aggression in the experimental and control groups at the pre-test (p<0.05).The results showed that CFT and STSFT increased self-esteem and decreased aggression in female adolescents with self-injurious behaviors at the post-test, compared with the control group (p<0.001).The effects of CFT and STSFT on self-esteem and aggression persisted at the follow-up (p<0.001).In addition, the effects of CFT and STSFT on self-esteem and aggression at post-test and follow-up were insignificant (p<0.05). Conclusion:Based on the results of this study, compassion-focused therapy, and short-term solution-focused therapy may be effective in enhancing the self-esteem and reducing the aggression of female adolescents with self-injurious behaviors.Therefore, these two therapeutic approaches can be used to reduce the problems arising from self-injury among teenage females, including reducing aggression and improving their self-esteem.