Study of the Effects of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy and Integrated Systemic Couple Therapy on Resolving Attachment Injury

This study examined the effects of emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) and integrated systemic couple therapy (IST) on resolving attachment injury. An attachment injury occur one partner betray or break the trust of the other in a specific incident and that incident become a clinically recurring issue. To this purpose 30 couples were randomly selected, and based on their pretests were assigned in two experimental and one control groups. Research instruments were Attachment Injury Measure (AIM; Millikin, 2000), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS: Spanier, 1976). Nine sessions of EFT were conducted for one of the experiment groups and eight sessions of IST were done for the other. The control group didn’t receive any treatment. These three groups completed post test at the end of the experiment period, as well as a follow-up test after 3 month. Results indicated that EFT and IST significantly resolved attachment injury of the couples, and the treatment effect were present 3 months after follow-up.