A Survey of the Impact of Reality Therapy and Feminist Therapy Group Counseling on Changing the Identity and Self-esteem of Female Householders

The current study has been carried out to examine the impact of reality therapy and feminist therapy group counseling on changing the identity and self-esteem of female householders. To fulfill this, the quasi-experimental method with pre-test, post-test and control group was utilized. The sample included a group of female householders, living the fifth district of Tehran and supported by Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, who were randomly selected. Cooper Smith’s personal identity and self-esteem inventories were given to 80 female householders. A group of 42 subjects with the lowest scores were randomly put into three groups: fourteen subjects in the reality therapy experimental group, fourteen subjects in the feminist therapy experimental group (one case of subject loss was observed) and fourteen subjects in the control group. The reality therapy group had nine counseling sessions and the feminist therapy group had ten counseling sessions. The collected data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and the follow-up Scheffé test. The findings indicated that both reality therapy and feminist therapy group counseling approaches impacted the identity and self-esteem of the female householders but no meaningful difference was observed between the effectiveness of these two approaches on the identity of the two groups. Although no meaningful difference was observed with regard to the effectiveness of the feminist therapy group counseling approach on the self-esteem of the two groups, reality therapy group counseling approach was effective on the self-esteem of the group.