The effectiveness of Emotional Schema Therapy on marital burnout on the Brink of Divorce

Marital burnout is a painful state of physical, emotional and psychological fatigue, which is created in conditions of long-term conflict with emotional demands and over time, the love and affection between couples become more diminished and sometimes fade completely. The reason for undesirable and destructive effects on marital relationships and the creation of psychosocial distances in couples is one of the main causes of emotional divorce, which, in the absence of treatment, prepares the ground for the formal divorce of couples. Therefore, the implementation of therapeutic interventions to improve marital relationships and reduce marital burnout seems necessary. In this regard, one of the most effective therapeutic perspectives is the emotional schema therapy, which is a new therapeutic model, and so far, its effectiveness in the severity of depression and introspection, Emotional schemas, couples' performance, and personality disorders has been proved. So, it is possible that it will also benefit in the marital burnout. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of emotional schema therapy on couples' marital burnout in the brink of divorce. This research was a semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design along with follow-up with the control group. The statistical population includes all couples on the brink of divorce, 586 couples who came to the Justice Department in Shahin Shahr and Meymeh during the year 2017 and applied for no-fault divorce. Next, 90 couples (180 persons), based on the criteria for entry into the research selected by a non-random sampling method. Criteria for entry into the research were: age range of 20 to 65 years; the duration of marriage 5 to 40 years; minimum education diploma; volunteering to participate in the study and not having specific physical and mental problems. Also, ethical considerations Necessity includes: providing written information about the research to the participants, giving assurances to individuals about the confidentiality of the information obtained and using it only in research matters. The voluntary participation of couples in the study and the lack of registration of their surname to respect the privacy and obtain the written consent of the couple fulfilled the Pines` marital burnout Scale. Then, among them, 54 couples (108 persons), whose grades in the pre-test stage, were a standard deviation higher than the mean in the scale for measuring marital burnout, were selected and randomly replaced in three groups; Experimental group (18 couples, 36 persons), Consulting group (18 couples, 36 persons) and control (18 couples, 36 persons). Then, the experimental group couples participated for three months in ten two-hour sessions (weekly one session) of Emotional Schema Therapy based on the Leahy Educational Package. The couples of the consulting group for three months in ten two-hour sessions (weekly one session) of Public speaking course included theoretical content that had nothing to do with the primary purpose of the experiment, while control subjects remained intact. One month after the completion of the training courses, all three groups filled out the post-test scale and three months after the implementation of the post-test in the follow-up phase they filled out the scale one more time. The data were analyzed by repeated measures of variance analysis and Bonferroni follow up test by using SPSS-22 software. Probabilities less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The results of the statistical analysis showed that emotional schema therapy reduced the scores of marital burnout and its components in the couples of the experimental group compared to the counseling and control groups in the post-test and follow-up stages (p<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the reduction in the rates of marital burnout and its components in the counseling group couples compared to the control group at the post-test stage (p<0.001), but in the follow-up phase, this difference was not significant (p=0.081). Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that emotional schema therapy plays a vital role in reducing the marital burnout on the brink of divorce. Therefore, family counselors and therapists can use the findings of this research in the context of clinical and therapeutic interventions and use this therapeutic, practical and useful approach to resolve conflicts and help improve marital relations among individuals.