Journal of

Separation anxiety is a kind of disorder that has a direct relationship with parenting style. Family based intervention and play therapy is a comprehensive program including training sessions for parents which focus on improving interpersonal relationships, establishing a healthy and positive interaction in the family, controlling family anger, investigating communication barriers in marital relationships, educating children and providing play therapy for children. Objective of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of family based intervention and play therapy in parenting style and stress of mothers and clinical symptoms of children with separation anxiety disorder.   Present research is a semi-experimental study in which there were two groups of 14 subjects along with pre-test and post-test.   Statistical population of the present study included all clients of a counseling centers in Tehran city who has been diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder. Therefore, to select some samples, availability sampling method was used.  Analysis of the research data with multivariate covariance analysis method showed that there was a significant difference between the parenting style and stress of mothers and clinical symptoms of children with separation anxiety disorder in both experimental and control group. This intervention had a significant effect on the parenting style of mothers and the reduction of parenting stress and it also reduced clinical symptoms in children with separation anxiety disorder.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of Parent-Child Interaction (PCIT) Therapy of mothers on children with separation anxiety disorder, on reducing over protection, parenting anxiety and anxiety symptoms of their 3-6 years old children. The research design was quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test and control groups. To do so, 30 mothers of children with SAD (separation anxiety disorder) were selected using at-hand sampling and, then, they were replaced into two experimental and control groups after being matched. The research tools were included CSI-4 questionnaire (Sprafikin & Gadow, 1994), MCRE questionnaire (ROBERT, 1961), and State-trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Spielberger, 1960). The parental behavior training was performed in ten 90-minute sessions in experimental group. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance, gain score, and T-test. The results show the effectiveness of experimental treatment on reduced scores of anxiety in children of mothers in the experimental group compared with the control group. The results also showed decrease in over protection and anxiety in mothers in the experimental group. Generally speaking, the findings demonstrated that parent-child interaction education causes to reduce the separation anxiety disorder signs, parental anxiety symptoms, and over protection. Moreover, it constructs secure attachment between child and parents.