Yousef Dehghani

The present research is a semi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. For this study, 45 second-grade elementary students were selected by random sampling. The research tools included the emotional dysregulation questionnaire, children’s depression inventory (CDI; Maria Kovacs), aggression scale (Shahim), and children’s hyperactivity questionnaire. The 45 subjects were assigned to three groups including the first experimental group (15 subjects), the second experimental group (15 subjects), and the control group (15 subjects). After performing the pretest in all the three groups, the first experimental group participated in 10 sessions of group cognitive-behavioral therapy. The second experimental group participated in 4 training sessions of discharge of affect by writing. The control group did not receive any education. After the training programs, the posttest and follow-up were performed in the experimental groups. Finally, the obtained data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings suggested a significant difference between the scores of the experimental groups and the control groups resulted from the group cognitive-behavioral therapy and discharge of affect by writing. Also, it was observed that the results were sustainable in the follow-up. Conclusion: According to the results, cognitive-behavioral therapy and discharge of affect by writing can effectively decrease the students’ endogenous and exogenous problems. Based on the results, cognitive-behavioral therapy and discharge of affect by writing can be used as a simple, low-cost, effective, efficient, and widely used method for decreasing the endogenous and exogenous problems.