The comparison effect of schema mode therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy on marital adjustment in couples with marital conflict referred to counseling centers

Conflict in marital relationships is a common problem and extensive therapeutic interventions have been suggested to reduce them and increase marital adjustment. The purpose of this study was to the comparison of the effectiveness of schema mode therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy on marital adjustment in couples with marital conflict.

This experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of this study included all couples with marital conflict who refer to Ahvaz counseling centers in year 2019, using a purposive sampling method, 45 couple were selected and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group (each group of 15 couples). To collect data marital adjustment of Spanir (1986) questionnaire were used. The experimental groups underwent individual schema mode therapy training (12 sessions 120 minutes) and emotionally focused couple therapy training (14 sessions 90 minutes), but the control group received no training. Data were analyzed by analysis of Covariance Analysis in SPSS-19 software.

The changes in the intervention groups compared to the control group in assessment steps was significantly different (P≤0.05) in marital adjustment (F = 6.011, P = 0.001) and about 22% of the observed differences in the marital adjustment variable are due to group membership (interventions). Benfroni subordinate test was used to compare these changes over time. Changes between pretest with posttest, pretest with follow-up and posttest with follow-up were significant only in the intervention groups (P≤0.05). Also, Benfroni subordinate test for pairwise comparison of groups showed that there is no significant difference between the experimental groups(p>0.05); But there is a significant difference between each of the experimental groups with the control group (P≤0.05).

The results showed that both schema mode therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy were effective to increasing marital adjustment in couples with marital conflict (p<0.05) and the results showed that there was significant difference in favor of emotionally focused couple therapy between the effectiveness of schema mode therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy on increasing marital adjustment in couples with marital conflict (p<0.05).

The results indicate that both schema mode therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy were effective in increasing marital adjustment in couples with marital conflict. Therefore, it is recommended that therapists and family counselors use these therapies along with other therapeutic interventions to increase marital adjustment and reduce marital conflict.