Comparison the effectiveness of emotional focused couple therapy and cognitive-behavioral couple therapy on marital intimacy of women affected by infidelity

Due to the high prevalence of contract in marital relationships and its irreparable consequences, the design, implementation and comparison of the effectiveness of various interventions is one of the necessities of modern research in this field. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of emotion-focused couple therapy and cognitive-behavioral couple therapy on marital intimacy of women affected by infidelity.

In this quasi-experimental study, the statistical population of this study included all women who referred to a counseling center after experiencing a breach of contract in the first quarter of 2020. From this statistical population, 45 people were selected by purposive method based on inclusion criteria and randomly replaced in three groups. The first group consisted of 15 patients receiving cognitive-behavioral couple therapy, the second group consisted of 15 patients receiving emotion-oriented couple therapy, and the third group received control group who did not receive any intervention. All participants were assessed before, after, and two months after the intervention with the Walker and Thompson (1983) Intimacy Scale (MIS). The obtained data were analyzed by statistical methods of analysis of variance of duplicate data.

The results showed that cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and emotion-oriented couple therapy in marital intimacy were significantly different from the control group (P <0.001). Emotion-focused couple therapy showed higher effectiveness (P <0.05).

According to the findings, although cognitive-behavioral couple therapy has increased intimacy between couples, but emotive couple therapy has been more effective in increasing the marital intimacy of betrayed women; Therefore, it is suggested to use emotion-oriented techniques to improve the relationship between the betrayed couple. Also, considering the effectiveness of both treatments, an integrated approach can be used in future studies.