Effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on sexual victims of romantic relationships: A single case study

Emotion-Focused Therapy is a short-term intervention which can target a constellation of disturbances characterized as complex PTSD stemming from sexual abuse. The aim of this study was to study the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy for sexual victims of romantic relationships. The clinical trial study was done by a single case method and a multiple baseline design. Three subjects (three women) were selected through purposive sampling. Emotion-focused therapy was conducted in 12 weekly sessions during years 2011-12 at the University Counseling Center and follow-up sessions were held three months after the treatment. Subjects completed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale, Rosenberg Self-esteem, Beck Depression Inventory-II, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Rumination questionnaires before treatment (at baseline), during sessions, and at three month follow-up. They also completed Post-traumatic Stress and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) pre-treatment, before entry into the study. Clinical significance and recovery percentage were used for data analysis. The results of study showed that emotion-focused therapy led to a significant improvement in PTSD, depression, anxiety, and rumination symptoms and increasing self-esteem in participants. Moreover, these results were maintained in a three-month follow-up in all the targets. It seems that emotion-focused therapy is effective in modulating clinical symptoms in sexual victims of romantic relationships and improves their self-esteem.