The effectiveness of Adlerian group counseling on couple's intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness

The intimacy is from the strengthen foundations of the couple's love, and the forgiveness is required to control the couple's conflict and quarrel and the staying dynamics of their love. The aim of the study was to study the effectiveness of Adlerian group counseling on couple's intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness. The method of the study was quasi-experimental and carried out in the framework of the design of pretest and posttest with control group. The statistical population consisted of the Sanandaj couples of 24-47 years old referring to the counseling and psychological services center of "Partov-e-Bamdad" in 2014 that 3-14 years passed from their marriage. The subjects were 20 people that were selected by non-randomly sampling of convenient and were assigned randomly into two equal groups of 10-people of experimental and control. The members of the experimental group accompanied the 12 sessions of Adlerian group counseling and the control group were on the waiting list. The data were gathered using the Walker and Thompson's intimacy scale (1983) and the interpersonal forgiveness scale of Ehteshamzadeh, Ahadi, Enayati and Heydari (2010). The result of the one variable covariance test indicated that the Adlerian group counseling was effective in increasing the couples intimacy (P=0/001, F=50/011) and all components of interpersonal forgiveness including the re-relationship and controlling the revenge-seeking (P=0/001, F=122/596), controlling the resentment (P=0/013, F=7/646) and the realistic understanding (P=0/001, F=48/563) of spouses. The practice of the Adlerian group counseling increased the couples intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness by enhancing their cooperative interaction and changing their uncompromising ways of life. Therefore, administering other studies to facilitate the usefulness of this practice is recommended for increasing the couples intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness of Iranian couple referring to counseling and psychological services centers.