Comparison of the effectiveness of Emotion-Focused couple therapy and solution-focused therapy on forgiveness and marital distress of couples seeking divorce referring to family social emergencies

The aim of this study was to Comparison of the effectiveness of Emotion-Focused couple therapy and solution-focused therapy on forgiveness and marital distress of couples seeking divorce referring to family social emergencies in Tehran in 1399. The research method is quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test design with control and follow-up groups. The statistical population of the study consisted of all couples referring to family social emergencies in Tehran, from which 45 people were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly divided into two experimental groups (15 people in each group) and one control group (15 people) were appointed. The experimental Emotion-Focused couple therapy was trained for 10 sessions of 60 minutes and the experimental solution-focused therapy was trained for 10 sessions of 60 minutes and the control group remained on the waiting list. The instruments used in the present study included the Interpersonal Forgiveness Questionnaire (Ehteshamzadeh et al., 2010) and marital distress (Malach Paynes, 2005). Analysis of information obtained from the questionnaire was performed in two descriptive and inferential sections (independent and paired t-test and multivariate analysis of covariance). The results showed that both Emotion-Focused couple therapy and solution-focused therapy are effective on forgiveness and marital distress of couples seeking divorce referring to family social emergencies. The difference is that Emotion-Focused couple therapy has a greater effect than the solution-focused therapy on the forgiveness and marital boredom of couples seeking divorce referring to family social emergencies. According to the findings, two approaches of Emotion-Focused couple therapy and solution-focused therapy can be used as effective, low-cost and effective approaches with wide applicability in improving forgiveness and repairing relationships between couples with marital boredom.