Psychological Inflexibility: The Role of Trans Diagnostic Processes in Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

Background: The high rate of coexistence between emotional disorders has prompted researchers to look for extradiagnostic factors that are involved in the formation and persistence of most mental disorders. One of these overdiagnostic factors is psychological flexibility, which has been considered as a factor in the development of most mental disorders in recent years. Objectives: The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the components of the psychological flexibility model in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with normal individuals. Methods: In a causal-comparative research design, 20 patients with GAD, 20 patients with OCD, 20 patients with MDD were compared with 20 normal people (control group). Sick and normal people were selected through available sampling from among the people referring to the psychiatric clinics of Malayer city and normal people living in Malayer respectively. To determine the difference between the patient group and the control group, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed. Results: Patients with GAD, OCD, and MDD had higher experiential avoidance, higher cognitive integration, and lower mind-awareness and value-oriented life compared to the control group. However, there was no significant difference in dependent variables between the three groups of GAD, OCD and MDD patients. Conclusions: Considering the significant difference between patients with emotional disorders and the control group in terms of psychological flexibility, interventions that help to increase psychological flexibility can be used to treat this group of patients.