Comparing the Effectiveness of Reality Therapy Approaches and Communication Imagery (Imago Therapy) on the Emotional Expression of Women Seeking Divorce

In today's world, the inability to recognize emotions and lack of emotional expression in marital relationships can be called one of the causes of marital disputes. The effect of psychological approaches on emotional expression can reduce couples’ differences and overshadow the health of the individual, family, and society. Reality therapy is one of the approaches that relies on concepts such as choice, control, and responsibility, and is effective in people's control and coping strategies. Another effective approach to couple communication is imagotherapy or communication imagery. In communication imagery, the unconscious is guided to improve one's wholeness by rekindling the communication, both individual and interpersonal, that was broken by failure in childhood. The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of two approaches to reality, therapy and communication imaging on the emotional expression of women seeking a divorce in Hamadan City, Iran.

The present study was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest design and a 3–month follow–up with a control group. The statistical population included all women seeking divorce in Hamadan in 2019. In this study, among the eligible volunteers, based on the inclusion criteria, 30 people entered the study in an accessible manner and were randomly organized into three groups of 10 experimental (reality therapy, and imago therapy) and control. The inclusion criteria were aged 20 to 50 years of volunteers and not using any counseling and psychological services. In this study, the exclusion criterion was having more than two absences for the participants in the study. Reality therapy sessions were performed in 8 sessions for 90 minutes and in the imago therapy approach 10 sessions were performed for 60 minutes.. The sessions were performed twice a week. The Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (EEQ) (King and Emmons, 1990) as a pretest was administered at the beginning of the first session and after the full implementation of the treatment intervention as a posttest and after three months for follow–up for all three groups. Data description was done through central and dispersion indicators such as mean and standard deviation. The data were analyzed with repeated measures analysis of variance and one–way analysis of variance and Bonferroni's post hoc test by SPSS version 20 software and probability values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

The results showed that the findings showed a significant difference between reality therapy and the control group for the variables of emotional expression (p<0.001), expression of positive emotion (p<0.001), expression of intimacy (p<0.001), and expression of negative emotion (p= 0.023). The results also showed a significant difference in communication imagery with the control group for the variables of positive emotion expression (p= 0.041), and intimacy expression (p= 0.005). In the experimental groups, there was no significant difference in the results of the posttest and follow–up stages in the variables of emotional expression, positive emotion expression and intimacy, which indicated the persistence of the effect of interventions in the follow–up stage (p>0.05). There was a significant difference in the variable of expressing intimacy (p = 0.039).

Based on the research findings, reality therapy is effective on emotional expression and its components (intimacy, positive emotional expression and negative emotional expression). While communication imagery only affects two variables of positive emotionl expression and intimacy; Therefore, reality therapy is more effective in increasing emotional expression than communication imagery.