Comparison of the Effectiveness of Creating Lasting Family Connections Program and Emotion-Focused Therapy on Resilience, Intimacy, and Cognitive-Emotional Regulation in Conflicting Couples

It is important to use appropriate interventions to reduce couples' conflicts. According to this, the purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of Creating Lasting Family Connections and Emotion-Focused Therapy on resiliency, intimacy, and cognitive emotion regulation in married and conflicted couples referred to counseling centers in Rasht. The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest with the control group. The statistical population included all married and conflicted married couples referred to counseling centers in Rasht in 2019. Thirty-six couples were selected by a convenience sampling method and were randomly assigned into three groups of 12 people. But because of the drop in the number of people in each group changed to 10 individuals. Creating Lasting Family Connections program and Emotion Focused Therapy were administered in training groups for 8 sessions for 1 hour and the control group did not receive any treatment. At the end of the sessions, a post-test was taken from all three groups simultaneously. The instruments used were Resilience Scale Scale(Connor & Davidson,2003), Marital Intimacy Scale(Walker & Thompson,1983), and Garnefski Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire(Garnefski,2001). Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that the Creating Lasting Family Connections program and Emotionally Focused Therapy had a significant effect on resilience, intimacy, and cognitive emotion regulation(P<0.05). The results also showed that between the two interventions of Creating Lasting Family Connections program and Emotion-Focused Therapy, Creating Lasting Family Connections program on the resilience and the intimacy of couples was more effective than Emotion-Focused Therapy. Based on the results of the present study, psychologists and family counselors are suggested to consider the variables of resilience, intimacy, and cognitive emotion regulation in working with conflicting couples according to the findings of the study.