A comparative scrutiny of the effectiveness of Emotionally-Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT) and Narrative Couple Therapy (NCT) in the marital quality and emotional, cognitive and behavioral impaired functioning of distressed couples

Distress in couple relationships is one of the most prevalent concerns in the recent decades that has considerable negative impacts on the biopsychosocial health of couples and their offspring. The present research aimed to compare the effectiveness of emotionally-focused and narrative couple therapy on the marital quality and emotional, cognitive and behavioral impaired functioning of distressed couples. The research design was randomized controlled trial and the sample consisted of 18 distressed couples who were randomly assigned to either NCT or EFCT as experimental groups and received between 8-12 weekly sessions of emotionally-focused couple therapy and narrative couple therapy. Also they were assessed in the screening, pre and post treatment, and follow-up stages utilizing Dyadic Adjustment Scale, The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale-Short Form, Relationship Attribution Measure, Rahim Organizational conflict Inventory-2, and Millon Clinical Multiaxail Inventory-III. Results revealed that NCT leads to significant change in the marital quality and behavioral impaired functioning by the end of the treatment, but the improvement was not steady at follow-up. EFCT led to significant changes in the marital quality, emotional and cognitive impaired functioning at the posttreatment. Also, in this group, behavioral impaired functioning was significantly improved at the follow-up. This improvement was steady except the attachment avoidance. Furthermore, outcomes for clinically significant changes favored EFCT both at the posttreatment and follow-up, but there were no significant differences between EFCT and NCT in the recovery rates in both assessment points.