Introduction: a retarded child is considered as a perishing pressure on the parents, hence, teaching these mothers is very important. One of the useful tasks to do for this, is teaching self-encouragement. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of self-encouragement on resilience and optimism of mothers with mental retardation.

Methods: The method was semi-experimental, pretest-posttest with a control group. The sample group included 24 mothers from Yazd city in 1393-94 with mentally retarded children volunteering (non-randomly) for the study and finally divided into control and experimental groups (fifteen people each). The resilience and optimism of the participants were assessed using CD-RISK Connor-Davidson’s resilience questionnaire and life orientation test LOT, respectively LOT and the experiment group was instructed the self-encouragement program for 1 sessions.

Results: Covariance analysis MANCOVA, ANCOVA in SPSS (ver. 22) of the data showed that the educational sessions had significant effect on resilience and optimism of the experimental group (p<0/05).

Conclusion: Accordingly, it can be concluded that teaching self-encouragement can lead to more resilience and optimism.