Effectiveness of Assessment and Education Phase of Schema Therapy on Marital Satisfaction

Marital satisfaction is a common concept to show the degree of happiness and solidarity in marital relationship. This paper aims to study the effectiveness of assessment and education phase of schema therapy on marital satisfaction of high school married students in Ghaen city, eastern Iran. The study has a quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test, control group, and a follow-up phase. The sample consisted of 30 married students who were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups (n=15 per group). Both groups were assessed using Young Schema Questionnaire - Short Form and ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Inventory in the pre-test, post-test and follow-up phases. The early maladaptive schemas were taught to the experimental group in 8 two-hour sessions held once a week. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software (V-22) using multivariate analysis of variance. While similar before intervention, the experimental and control groups were significantly different after intervention. In other words, education led to increased, long-lasting levels of marital satisfaction. Therefore, it can be concluded that marital satisfaction can enhance by implementing assessment and education phase of schema therapy.