Testing the effect of cognitive behavioral group psychotherapy on the relapse tendency in individuals who have received substance abuse treatment

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of cognitive behavioral group therapy and irrational beliefs that are believed to be related to relapses, psychological resilience, emotion regulation and the effects in self-efficacy variables of individuals in the substance use tendencies (substance use desires and substance use probabilities) who have been treated with substance dependence.It is an experimental study based on research, experiment and control group and pre-test, post-test model. Cognitive Behavioral model based group therapy was applied in the study to reduce the relapse tendency levels of the substance-treated young people through psychological endurance, self-efficacy, irrational beliefs and emotional regulation variables. 24 participants aged 18-24 years who had used and treated substance within the scope of supervised release by the Ministry of Justice, 12 were experimental and 12 were randomly assigned to the control group. Variables in the study were measured by self-assessment scales; Relapse prediction scale, Difficulties in Emotion regulation scales (DERS), Resistance Scale, General self-efficacy scale and irrational beliefs scale. These five scales were given as pre-tests for the experimental and control group. For the experimental group, cognitive behavioral group therapy sessions were conducted by the researcher for 13 weeks as a weekly session. For the control group, no studies were conducted on drug addiction and relapse, and in some weeks information was provided on topics other than research topics. The final test was given to the experimental and control group after the end of the experiment group process. Findings obtained at the end of the experimental process were examined with "Anova for Mixed Measurements" and "t test for Relative Measurements". Analyzes revealed that there was no significant change in the control group, while the participants in the substance-dependence treatment group showed a significant decrease in the likelihood of substance use and substance use after cognitive behavioral group therapy. When the variables considered to be related to relapses were examined, it was seen that in the experimental group there was a significant decrease in the irrational beliefs and emotions regulation strength scores after cognitive behavioral group therapy and a significant increase in the scores of the psychological resilience scores. In the control group, no significant change was found between pre-test and post-test. There was no significant difference in self-efficacy between study and control groups before and after the study. The results were interpreted by considering the relativistic effect of cognitive behavioral theory and therapy, the relativity of the variables used in the study, and the relation with cognitive behavioral approach.