Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy on Marital Conflict and Interpersonal Processing of Married Women with Emotional Divorce

Emotional divorce is one of the phenomena that women experience more because of the cultural context in our country. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of dialectical behavioral therapy on the conflict and interpersonal processing of married women with emotional divorce in Tehran.

The research is a semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest design with control group, and follow-up (two months). The statistical population consisted of all women referred to two counseling centers in Tehran in 2018. For this purpose, 40 women with emotional divorce were selected using convenience sampling method and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received a program of dialectic behavioral therapy. To collect the data Marital Conflict – Revised questionnaire, Interpersonal Processing Scale & Emotional Divorce Questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and repeated measure analysis of variance.

Results of repeated measure analysis showed that the experimental group compared with the control group in the post-test and follow-up, reduced the conflict (F= 49.67, P<.01) and increased interpersonal processing (F=16.71, p<.01).

According to the results it can be deduced that, the therapeutic dialectical behavior approach reduces the negative emotions that lead to conflict by increasing awareness, and emotional regulation, which increases the effective relationships.