The Mediating Role of Self-Differentiation in the Relationship between Emotional Abuse and Co-Dependency in married female students

One of the problems that families are involved with is the experience of violence, especially Emotional Abuse. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of Self-Differentiation between the components of Co-Dependency and Emotional Abuse components. This is a Descriptive Correlational study. The Statistical Population of the present study was all married female students of the Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran in 2018. That 250 of them were selected by available sampling method and they completed the Emotional Abuse Scale, Holyoake Co-Dependency Scale and Self-Differentiation Questionnaire. the data were analyzed by Pearson Correlation and Path Analysis. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between all components of Co-Dependency, Self-Differentiation and all components of Emotional Abuse (p < 0.05), as well as Self-Differentiation in the relationship between all components of Co-Dependency with all components of Emotional Abuse, except the Emotional Reactivity component, play a mediating role. Self-Differentiation as a mediator can modify the relationship between Co-Dependency with Emotional Abuse. Therefore, the emphasis on Self-Differentiation training can be considered in order to reduces the effects of Co-Dependency and Emotional Abuse.