The Effect of Schema Therapy on Extramarital Relationships and Domestic Violence in Women with Emotional Divorce

This study aimed to investigate the effect of schema therapy on extramarital relationships and domestic violence in women with emotional divorce. The research method was semi experimental with pre-protest, follow-up and control group. The statistical population of this study was women with emotional divorce referred to counseling centers and social emergency centers in 123 Dezful of County. 40 women with emotional divorce who obtained above 8 score on this scale were selected as a sample by the available sampling method and randomly assigned to two groups of 20 participants (experimental and control). For the experimental group, schema therapy was performed in 16 sessions in 2 months. Emotional Divorce Scale (Gottman, Gottman & Silver, 1995), Domestic Violence against Women Scale (Haj-Yahia, 1999), and Attitudes Toward Infidelity Scale (Whatley, 2012) were used as the evaluation tools in the pre-test, post-test and follow-up. Finally, the data were analyzed by SPSS software version 24 using analysis variance of with repeated measures. The results showed that schema therapy is effective in reducing extramarital relationships and domestic violence, and this result was stable in the follow-up phase (p <0.01). According to the results obtained, and the continuation of its effect in the follow-up phase, the use of schema therapy is recommended to reduce extramarital affairs and domestic violence in women involved in emotional divorce.