The Effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Couple Group Therapy on Self-Differentiation of Couples with Conflict

Self-differentiation is one of the most important concepts in family studies, which plays an essential role in creating conflicts and problems in marital relationships. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of emotionally-focused couple group therapy on self-differentiation of couples with conflict. The research method was quasi-experimental using pretest, posttest, and a control group. The study population included all couples referring to counseling center of psychology faculty of Tehran University in 2016. The study sample consisted of twenty couples who were selected via the available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups; ten couples each. To collect the data, the Skowron and Smith’ self-differentiation questionnaire(2003) was used. Participants in the experimental group attended eight sessions of ninety-minute emotionally focused couple group therapy and the control group received no intervention. In the end, both groups completed the tests. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. Results indicated that emotionally focused couple group therapy has decreased “Emotional Cutoff” and strengthened “I Position” in the experimental group. However, it has not created a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in two components “Emotional Reactivity” and “Fusion with Others”. Results of this research showed that the emotionally focused couple group therapy has a significant positive effect on the self-differentiation of conflicted couples. Accordingly, the emotionally focused couple group therapy is an effective way of increasing the self-differentiation in conflicted couples and can be used by therapists in the field of family therapy