Comparison of the Effectiveness of the Schema Therapy Training and Mindfulness on Intimacy, Commitment, and Happiness of Women with Couple Burnou

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of schema therapy education and mindfulness on couple intimacy, commitment, and happiness of women with couple burnout.

This quasi-experimental study was performed as pretest-posttest with a control group. The population included all women with couple burnout who were referred to the charity of association Baghiyato Allah Al-Azam of Khomeini Shahr in 2018. From this population, 36 people were selected by available sampling method and were randomly assigned to three groups, namely schema therapy (12 individuals), mindfulness (12 individuals), and control (12 individuals). Both experimental groups received eight 90-min training sessions. The study instruments were Couple Intimacy Scale, Couple Commitment Scale, Couple Happiness Scale, and Couple Burnout Scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using multivariate covariance analysis and one-way covariance analysis.

The findings showed a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in intimacy (P = 0.001, F = 20.84), commitment (P = 0.001, F = 30.52), and couple happiness (P = 0.001, F = 47.85) in the posttest phase. In addition, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of two schema and mindfulness therapies on intimacy, there was a significant difference in commitment and couple happiness.

According to the findings, it can be concluded that the schema and mindfulness therapies can increase the level of intimacy, commitment, and couple happiness. Therefore, it is recommended that therapists use these approaches as an effective treatment for enhancing intimacy, commitment, and couple happiness.