The Effect of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Divorced Women’s Psychosocial Adjustment and Cognitive Emotion Regulation

Psychological pressures following divorce disturb women’s psychosocial adaptation. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) on psychosocial adjustment and cognitive emotion regulation in divorced women.

This study was conducted using a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The research population included all divorced women who had divorce-related psychological problems and referred to Tehran consultation centers in 2018. Using convenience sampling, 30 women willing to participate in the project were selected and randomly divided them into the experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups. The instruments used to collect the data were the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The dialectical behavior therapy intervention was performed for the participants in the intervention group for ten 90-minute sessions.

The mean scores of psychosocial adjustment and positive and negative emotion regulation in the intervention group were 64.33±4.32, 28.00±7.26, and 63.57±12.54 respectively. DBT promoted psychosocial adjustment of the divorced women in the intervention group compared to the members of the control group (P= 0.001). Furthermore, this therapeutic technique caused a decrease in negative cognitive emotion regulation and an increase in positive cognitive emotion regulation among the divorced women in the intervention group (P= 0.001).

Given the findings of this study, it can be concluded that DBT is an effective technique to promote psychosocial adjustment and positive cognitive emotion regulation and also to reduce negative cognitive emotion regulation among divorced women.