The comparison of the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and imagotherapy on the resilience of married women referring to consulting centers in the city of Tehran

Marital conflicts reduce couples’ resilience. But can acceptance and commitment therapy and imagotherapy help improve the resilience of married women referring to consulting centers?

The present study was conducted aiming to compare acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and imagotherapy on the resilience of married women referring to consulting centers in the city of Tehran.

The research method of this study was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of the current study included all married women referring to consulting centers in the city of Tehran in 2017. In this study, voluntary non-probability sampling and random assignment were used. After selecting the sample size and assigning them to two experimental groups and one control group, the experimental groups received acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) (Hayes & Ostrosahl, 2010) and imagotherapy (Moreau et al., 2016) interventions during three months as 90-minute sessions weekly. The applied questionnaires in the present study included Barati and Sana'ie (2006) Marital Conflict Scale and the Resilience Scale (Conner and Davidson, 2003). The collected data were analyzed through analysis of covariance.

The results showed that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and imagotherapy were effective on the resilience of married women referring to consulting centers (p<0.001). Also, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and imagotherapy on the resilience of married women referring to consulting centers. (p>0/05).

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and imagotherapy had similar effectiveness on the resilience of the women with marital conflicts and these two methods can be used to improve the resilience of these women.