Effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy on the Marital Intimacy of Couples Coping with Breast Cancer in Women

Emotions play an important role in marital life and constitute an effective factor in couples’ marital intimacy. Accordingly, examining emotions is important for improving the couple’s relationship. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) on the marital intimacy of couples with women with breast cancer.

The study had a pretest-posttest control group design. Twenty-two persons meeting the inclusion criteria were selected by cluster sampling in Tehran. The subjects were randomly divided into the intervention (n = 11) and control (n = 11) groups. The intervention group received EFT for 6 sessions (120 min per session), but the control group did not receive any intervention. Both groups were assessed before and after the intervention using the Marital Intimacy Questionnaire Bagarozzi (MIQB-44). Data were analyzed using independent t tests and analysis of covariance.

After receiving the educational program, the intervention group showed increases in the mean scores for all components of marital intimacy compared with the control group. The mean increase was 11.72 points for emotional intimacy, 6.23 for psychological intimacy, 6.05 for rational intimacy, 4.36 for sexual intimacy, 3.31 for physical intimacy, 3.82 for spiritual intimacy, 3.68 for aesthetic intimacy, and 4.64 for socio-recreational intimacy. Meanwhile, the control group showed declines in all components except psychological intimacy, which increased <0.5 points. Analysis of covariance showed that EFT had a significant positive effect on all components of intimacy in the experimental group as compared with the control group (P < 0.01).

EFT improves the components of marital intimacy as well as increasing people’s resilience to socio-psychosocial disorders. Therefore, EFT can be considered a novel approach to changing perceptions in translating emotion regulation processes in people dealing with chronic physical illnesses. It provides a better response to situations and prevents deep distress in life and marital relationships.