Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• mahshid shabani ¹
• shohreh ghorban shiroudi ²
• javad khalatbari ²

¹ PhD Student in Counseling, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon Branch, Tonekabon, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction
The family, as the most fundamental cultural and social institution, has the most stable effect on its members, so that people's attitudes, behaviors, beliefs and emotions are deeply influenced by the family context. The bricks of a family are based on the emotional ties and personal trust of each couple, which is not only comfort for the individual, but also for the whole family. The absence of each parent in the family environment due to divorce disturbs its balance, weakens the functions of the family, and reduces social supervision and control. As a result, addiction and delinquency, physical problems, psychological and social disturbances, and disorders of behavior increase in children. Children of divorce face intellectual, emotional, identity and social challenges in groups of friends due to receiving social stigma, which forms the basis for behavioral disorders in them. Therefore, The present study was conducted to develop a psychological capital training package and evaluate its Effectiveness on the alexitimia of the Students Engaged in Divorce with Externalized Behavior Disorder.
 
Method
The research method of the present study was thematic analysis through comparative method in the qualitative part and quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, control group design and two-month follow-up period in the quantitative part. The statistical population of the present study included the students engaged in divorce with externalized behavior disorder who were studying in the first high school in the academic year 2020–21 in the city of Isfahan. 40 students engaged in divorce with externalized behavior disorder were selected through the purposive sampling method and randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (each group of 20 students). The experimental group received ten 75-minute sessions of psychological capital training over two and a half months. 3 people from the experimental group and three from the control group quit participating in the study. The applied questionnaires in this study included alexitimia questionnaire (AQ) and children and adolescents behavioral inventory (CABI). The data from the study were analyzed through a mixed ANOVA via SPSS 23 statistical software.
 
Results
The results showed that the psychological empowerment package enjoys suitable content validity from the experts’ viewpoint. Furthermore, this package has had an effect on the alexitimia (f = 17.02, eta = 0.35, p≤0.001) of the students engaged in divorce with externalized behavior disorder. In addition, the results showed that the effect of the psychological empowerment package was stable on the alexitimia of the students engaged in divorce and the externalized behavior disorder of the patients with follow-up stages. After carefully examining the descriptive findings, it was found that the psychological empowerment package reduced the alexitimia of the students engaged in divorce with externalized behavior disorder in the pre-test and post-test stages.
 
Conclusion
According to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that psychological capital training can be used as an efficient method to decrease alexitimia in the students engaged in divorce with externalized behavior disorder through employing the fundamentals of resilience, optimism, hope and self-efficacy. In addition, it should be said that psychological capital is introduced as a structure beyond social and internal capital and includes your identity in the direction of "what you are" and "what you can be". This process can cause changes in people's emotional processing and reduce their alexitimia.

Keywords

• Alexitimia
• Divorce
• Externalized Behavior Disorder
• Psychological Capital