The effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on mental pain, experiential avoidance, and forgiveness in women with depression, who experienced a romantic relationship breakup

Depression and love trauma syndrome are characterized by changes in mood and emotions and disruptions in performance.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on mental pain, experiential avoidance, and forgiveness in women with depression, who experienced a romantic relationship breakup.

In the present study, a semi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group design with a three-month follow-up was employed. The statistical population consisted of all females, aged 18-35 years, who experienced a romantic relationship breakdown in Isfahan, Iran, in 2021. Thirty participants were selected via available sampling and randomly divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental group participated in 10 sessions of emotion focused therapy (90 minutes per session). For data collection, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-V Axis I Disorders (SCID-I), Love Trauma Syndrome Questionnaire (1999), Beck Depression Inventory (1996), Heartland Forgiveness Scale (2005), Orbach & Mikulincer Mental Pain Scale (2003), and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (2004) were used. Descriptive and inferential data were analyzed in SPSS Version 24, using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The results indicated significant differences in the mean scores of mental pain, experiential avoidance, and forgiveness between the experimental and control groups (P<0.001). Regarding these variables, 73.1%, 39.7%, and 80.1% of the variance between the groups in the post-test, and 76.2%, 41.8%, and 77.1% of the variance between the groups in the follow-up were attributed to the effects of intervention, respectively.

The emotion focused therapy was effective in improving the mental pain, experiential avoidance, and forgiveness of women with depression and who experience relationship breakdown. Therefore, this method can be used to improve the emotional health of these women.