Cognitive bibliotherapy for delinquent adolescents with psychopathic disorder: a quasi-experimental study

ABSTRACT Bibliotherapy is used as a low-cost, non-pharmacological intervention in the treatment of many mental disorders. This study aimed to investigate the effect of cognitive bibliotherapy on personality traits of psychopathic disorder in delinquent adolescents. This research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test and posttest design and experimental and control groups. The study's statistical population consisted of all 160 male adolescents at the Tehran Correctional Center, and the samples consisted of 30 persons with psychopathic personalities. They were selected by purposive sampling. After the bibliotherapy and poetry therapy intervention, there was a significant difference in the overall score of psychopathic traits between the experimental and control groups favoring the experimental group (P = 0.001). The findings showed that bibliotherapy and poetry therapy intervention reduced personality traits of psychopathy in delinquent adolescents, thus it can be concluded that bibliotherapy effectively reduces and improves the traits that constitute a psychopathic disorder.