Effectiveness of Mentalization-based Cognitive Therapy on
Youths with Internet Gaming Disorder
Pages: 19-27
Mentalization-based cognitive therapy is a combination of intervention seen to be effective
on improving internet gaming addiction. It enhances ability to understand one’s own
mental states and others and improve relationships by incorporating cognitive training
such as identifying automatic and rationale thoughts. A sample of 22 youths meeting
the criteria of internet gaming disorder consented to attend the Mentalization-based
cognitive therapy in individual sessions and was grouped as Experimental Group. The
Control Group comprised of 6 youths who consented to participate but were not
administered therapy. The Multidimensional Mentalization Questionnaire (MMQ) and
the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-short form (IGDS9-SF) were administered to both
experimental and control group, to measure mentalization and internet gaming disorder,
before and after the intervention. The findings indicate that the experimental group
significantly showed improved mentalization ability which included significant
improvement from relational discomfort, indicating that enhancement in interpersonal
relationship aids in decreasing internet gaming addiction among youths and decrease
in internet gaming disorder scores from the pre-test to post-test, when compared to
the control group. The experimental and control group displayed significant difference
in both mentalization ability and severity of internet gaming disorder. Additionally,
significant difference in post-tests scores was shown between experimental and control
group in internet gaming disorder with decrease in internet gaming disorder among
experimental group compared to control group