Comparing the Effectiveness of Attachment-Centered Theraplay and Child-Parent Relationship Play Therapies on Emotion Regulation in Children with Separation Anxiety Disorder

Background and Aim: The child-centered communication that is provided in special game sessions makes child therapy a desirable therapeutic tool for parents belonging to different cultures. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of attachment-centered play therapy and parent-child relationship-based play therapy on the emotional regulation of children with separation anxiety disorder. Methods: The current quasi-experimental research was conducted using a pretest-posttest-follow-up method with two experimental groups and one control group. The statistical population of this research included all mother-child pairs of five to six-year-old girls and boys with separation anxiety who were registered in preschool centers or kindergartens in the 4th district of Tehran in the academic year of 2022-2023. Among them, 45 people were selected by the available sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (15 people in each group) and one control group (15 people). The experimental group of attachment-centered play therapy was trained for 8 sessions of 60 minutes, and the experimental group of play therapy based on the parent-child relationship was trained for 10 sessions of 2 hours. The tools used in the current research included emotional regulation (Shields and Cicchetti, 1995). The analysis of the information obtained from the implementation of the questionnaire was done through SPSS-v24 software in two descriptive and inferential sections (variance analysis with repeated measurements). Results: The findings related to the within-group factor showed that the calculated F value for the effect of the phases (pre-test, post-test, and follow-up) was significant at the 0.05 level for emotion regulation scores (F=2.9 at P<0.05). The results indicated that both interventions used in this research could significantly improve the emotional regulation of children with separation anxiety disorder. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that both training programs, utilizing specialized techniques of each intervention, were able to effectively promote empathy with the child and respond to the child's needs while providing emotional regulation, which in turn enhanced the mother's ability and competence.