The effectiveness of value-based Acceptance-Commitment Therapy for enhancing meaning of life in COVID-19

Abstract

As growing number of people are experiencing negative emotions such as depression and anxiety in the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the need of non-face-to-face psychotherapy is emerging in restriction caused by social distance. The commitment of value and meaning of life can act as a protective factor in the situation of experiencing psychological difficulties during the COVID-19. Thus, this study applied ‘Value-based acceptance-commitment therapy for enhancing meaning of life’ which is video conference group counselling and verified the effectiveness of program. A total of 40 adults who experienced depression were assigned to the experimental and control groups, 20 respectively. The program consisted of 8 sessions and in the experimental group program was conducted in twice a week for 4 weeks. As a result, the experimental group’s meaning of life, valuable life, acceptance, mindfulness increased and depression, anxiety were reduced significantly. However, the satisfaction of life has not increased. This suggests that the intervention of this program in the Covid-19 can help accept the psychological difficulties and improve the meaning of life. Last, implications and limitations of this study were discussed. PU - Korean Clinical Psychology Association