Comparison of the Effectiveness of Contextual Therapy Fair- Centered and Emotion-Focused Therapy on the Marital Quality and Marital Conflict

This study aimed to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of Contextual Therapy fair- centered (CT) (based on Iván Böszörményi-Nagy theory) and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) on increasing Marital Quality and Reducing Marital Conflict among couples with marital Conflict. The method was semi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all couples who in 2017-2018 referred to the private office of counseling and psychological services in the city of Urmia. Among them, 24 couples were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to three groups, two experimental and one control group. The questionnaires included the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Busby, Christensen, Crane, & Larson, 1995), and the Revised Marital Conflict Questionnaire (Sanai Zaker, Barati, & Bustani pour, 2008). To analyze the data and hypotheses, the statistical test method of "repeated measurement variance analysis" and SPSS software were used. there is a significant difference (p < 0.001) between the effectiveness of the two approaches in reducing Marital Conflict and the effectiveness of the Emotion-Focused approach is significantly more than Contextual Therapy. The results also showed that there is no significant difference between the two approaches in increasing Marital Quality, but over time, the effectiveness of the Contextual Therapy approach to the Emotion-Focused approach in "marital Quality" is more stable. Because marital Conflict is theoretically highly dependent on attachment and emotion theory, therefore, the Emotion-Focused approach is more effective in this variable. And because in the long run, a sense of justice and fairness in a relationship leads to a steady improvement in family functioning, the Contextual approach has shown better therapeutic stability in the marital Quality than the Emotion-Focused approach.