Effectiveness of attachment based therapy using video feedback on decreasing parental stress and externalizing problems of children

The purpose of this research was to investigate the efficacy of attachment based therapy on decreasing parental stress in mothers of preschool children with externalizing behaviors and decreasing this type of behavioral problems in these children. 25 mother-child dyads were selected via available sampling from three nursery schools. Mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). The intervention program for the experimental group included eight individual and weekly 60-minute sessions and mothers of the control group received an educational package focusing on increasing cognitive skills of the children. The result showed parental stress of mothers in experimental group significantly decreased in both children and their mothers. Also, the externalizing problems of children (including oppositional behavior, aggression and hyperactivity- attention deficit) decreased in the experimental group. Considering the attachment based components of the intervention package, it seems that decreasing parental stress and behavioral problems of children was due to an increase in maternal sensitivity and improving mother- child interaction patterns.