The Effectiveness of Instructing Emotion-focused Approach in Improving the Marital Satisfaction in Couples

Abstract

Emotion-focused Treatment (EFT) is a short-term and structured approach in Couples Therapy which is based on clear and evident concepts of marital desperation, affections recognition, adulthood love, and emotional responses. According to this outlook, marital agitation is formed and continues by widespread states of negative affection and attachment damages, lack of concern toward needs and internal wishes, negative interactional prototypes, and unsuitable emotional experience. The present study has been conducted for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of employing emotion-focused approach in couple's marital satisfaction. The population of this study includes couples Family Counseling Center of Education District 5 Tehran who have been married at least for three and at most for six years. Forty people (20 couples) were chosen by simple randomization and were randomly divided into two groups (one as experimental and the other one as control group). The experimental group was exposed to emotion-focused Couples Therapy intervention for eight sessions with duration of each session being ninety minutes. Meanwhile, the control group was put on the waiting list. Both groups were evaluated again after eight weeks. T-test and analysis of covariance were used for the data analysis. The results of the study indicated that the emotion-focused intervention has been effective in increasing the indicators of marital satisfaction in couples. Also, the findings of the study revealed a significant difference between women and men in emotion-focused experimental group and those in the control group.