Participants were guided through the creation of a self-managed reward system that they could use in reinforcing progress toward the goals identified in the self-evaluation phase.
All 8 participants in the self-control therapy group had scores in the clinical range at pretest, suggesting that they displayed many depressive symptoms.
Researchers found self-control therapy effective for moderately depressed women, and therefore successfully replicated the findings from Fuchs and Rehm (1977).
[2][4] Stark, Reynolds and Kaslow (1987) modified Rehm et al.'s (1984) self-control therapy manual for adults into an intervention program designed to teach children adaptive skills for self-monitoring, self-evaluating performance, attributing the cause of good and bad outcomes, and self-reinforcement.
[5] Similar to self-control therapy for adults, the intervention taught skills to the participants through presentations, in-therapy training, and the completion of behavioral homework assignments.
[2][4] The content was also similar and included self-monitoring of pleasant activities and the use of log sheets, identification of delayed consequences, realistic standards for self-evaluation, and frequent self-reinforcement.
The effects of both interventions appeared to generalize over time, especially for the children in the self-control group who reported significantly less depression at an 8-week follow-up than immediately after treatment.
Rehm (1983) found no significant differences in self-control therapy outcomes as a function of age, marital status, employment, education, income or religion in a sample of 104 clinically depressed women.