The Effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on couple’s marital intimacy and emotion regulation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on marital intimacy and emotion regulation of couples. The method of this research is semi experimental that was carried out by using a pre-test-post-test design with the control group. The statistical population consisted of all married students referring to Sanandaj counseling centers that 20 couples (40 people) of them were selected using with Convenience Sampling. These couples were randomly assigned in 20-member groups to the experimental and control group. Data collected by the couples' intimacy questionare of Olia, Fatehizadeh, and Bahrami and the emotion regulation of Gratz & Roemer, and analyzed by covariance analysis. The data analysis showed that participate in sessions of compassion-focused therapy increased the marital intimacy (P <0.001 and F = 389.96) and the emotion regulation (P <0.001 and F = 19.140) in couples. It means there was a significant difference between scores of the experimental group that receiving the treatment and the control group that received no treatment. According to the results, using compassion focused therapy can improve intimacy and emotion regulation, and this can be an essential step toward reducing marital and divorce problems.