The effectiveness of reality therapy (choice theory) on couple's social's role taking and Self-differentiation

One of the important factors that shape satisfaction in interpersonal relationships, especially marital relationships, is social role-taking. Personality differentiation, which has a strong relationship with social role-taking, also plays a significant role in this regard. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of fact-based education, therapy based on choice theory on couples' social's role taking and Self-differentiation, which is applied in terms of purpose and quasi-experimental method with pre-test-post-test design with control group. Among all couples referring to counseling centers in districts 2 and 5 of Tehran in 2017, 30 couples who were selected by available sampling were randomly assigned to experimental (15 couples) and control (15 couples). The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of 90 minutes. Subjects completed questionnaires of social role taking and Self-differentiation in three stages of pre-test, post-test and follow-up. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to evaluate the results. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the level (P <0.01) in the mean and standard deviation of the experimental's social role-taking scores in the post-test and follow-up as well as self- differentiation in the level (P <0.05) in the post-test; But the mean scores of Self-differentiation in the follow-up stage were not significant. According to the obtained results, reality therapy training based on choice theory can be used as an appropriate and effective method in couple therapy interventions and in premarital counseling.