Comparing effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral couple therapy with systemic- behavioral couple therapy on intimacy and differentiation of self in couples with marital conflict

Absence of intimacy and low level of differentiation of couples can be one of the reasons of divorce among couples. Although the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral couple therapy has been confirmed on different variables, no research has been performed on its effectiveness on the levels of differentiation, studied population, and comparison of this treatment with systemic-behavioral treatment.

This study was performed to compare the effectiveness of systemic-behavioral and cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and self-differentiation of couples who have martial conflicts.

The present research was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design and two-month follow-up with control group. The statistical population consisted of couples referring to two healthcare centers of district 4 of Tehran because of marital conflicts in 2019-2020. From among the clients of these two centers, after completing the questionnaire of marital conflict (Sanaei, 2008), 27 couples (n=54) were chosen and after matching, they were assigned into three groups (two experimental and one control). The research instruments included the Thompson and Walker's Marital Intimacy Scale (1983), Skowron and Friedlander self-differentiation questionnaire (1998). One of the experimental groups received systemic-behavioral couple therapy of Crow and Ridley (2005), while the other group received cognitive-behavioral couple therapy protocol of Dattilio (2009) as couple in ten 90-min sessions. Data analysis was performed using mixed variance analysis and Bonferroni post-hoc test using SPSS-21.

The results showed that both couple therapy methods significantly improved the intimacy and self-differentiation of the couples with marital conflict. There was no significant difference between the effectiveness of these treatment models (p<0.05).

Based on the results of this study, application of these two approaches is recommended for improving intimacy and differentiation among couples with marital conflicts