The Effect of Art Therapy based on Painting Therapy in Reducing Symptoms of Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) in Elementary School Boys

摘要

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of art therapy based on painting therapy on 30 children recruited from elementarily School Boys with symptom of separation anxiety disorder who were 7-12 years old. To find and select the main subjects, two steps were taken. At the first step, children obtaining scores higher than cut-off in CHILD SYMPTOM INVENTORY-4 (CSI-4) were selected, and at the second step, for final selection, children were attended in the Structured Diagnostic Interview-based on DSM-IV-TR criteria. The researcher adopted interview/observation and the document analysis for qualitative study and went through the painting therapy by 12 sessions twice per week, and each session lasted 40minutes based on discussion and reviewing from parents and the teacher. An experimental and a pretest-posttest control group design method were applied in this regard. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as ANCOVA. The finding showed that experimental group did have a significant decrease in the symptoms of SAD while the control group showed no significant difference.