The effectiveness of emotion-oriented therapy on feelings of inferiority, sensation-seeking and attachment styles of married women with experience of extramarital relationships

Various factors at the personality and psychological levels, such as feelings of inferiority, excitement seeking, and attachment styles separately and in interaction with each other, affect the relationship between couples and lead to an increase in their tendency towards marital infidelity. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of emotion-oriented therapy on feelings of inferiority, sensation-seeking, and attachment styles of married women with experience of extramarital relationships.

The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. Its statistical population was made up of all the women of Mashhad who were involved in or had experience of extramarital relationships and who had a counseling case in Pidaish counseling centers of Mashhad; 40 women who met the conditions to enter the research were selected by available sampling method and randomly replaced in two experimental (20 people) and control (20 people) groups. The data collection tool was Hazen and Shaver's attachment style questionnaire (1986), Zuckerman's sensation seeking (1979) and Eysenck's inferiority complex (1988). The training group was given emotional therapy during 9 sessions, and the control group was not subjected to any intervention. Data analysis was done through univariate and multivariate covariance analysis using SPSS-22 software.

The findings showed that emotion-oriented therapy training is effective on sensation seeking, feelings of inferiority and on all three secure, avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles (P=0.001).

The results showed the effectiveness of emotion-oriented therapy on feelings of inferiority, sensation-seeking, and attachment styles of married women with experience of extramarital relationships. Therefore, therapists and psychologists can use this treatment method to improve psychological health, especially to reduce feelings of inferiority, sensation seeking, and to improve secure attachment styles