The Effect of Emotional Schema Therapy on Forgiveness, Quality of Marital Relationships, and Self-Differentiation of Women Faced with Infidelity

The aim of this study is to study the effect of emotional schema therapy on forgiveness, quality of marital relationships, and differentiation of women facing infidelity. This research is applied in terms of purpose with quasi-experimental method and pretest-posttest with a control group. The statistical population includes all women with an infidelity problem who referred to Saba Psychological and Psychiatric Services Center in Dezful in 2019, from which 30 people were selected voluntarily and were randomly classified in two groups of 15 people (experimental group and control group). The research instruments include the questionnaires for Interpersonal Forgiveness Inventory (IFI), Quality of the Marital Relationship Scale (QMRS), and Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI) which were filled out through two stages of pre-test and post-test. In the next step, the experimental group received 8 sessions of 90 minutes (twice a week) and the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate covariance methods via SPSS software. The results showed that schema therapy could significantly increase the forgiveness, quality of relationship, and differentiation of women faced with infidelity (p < 0.001). Therefore, the use of emotional schema therapy approach is proposed as an effective intervention to prevent couples’ problems.