Comparing the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Schema Therapy on Forgiveness and Couple Intimacy in Couples Living in Tehran, Iran

Intimacy between couples is one of the important factors in creating lasting marriages. An intimate relationship means mutual communication, care, and acceptance. In recent years, helping couples to improve their marital relationships has been considered using various methods of treatment. It is necessary to help couples to solve marital problems by recognizing the factors and causes affecting marital forgiveness and intimacy. Acceptance and commitment therapy teaches couples to approach unwanted inner thoughts, feelings, and physical states associated with these dynamics and communication patterns. Thus, learning to consciously accept such thoughts and actions is practiced with couples in ways that continually target couples' emotional connection and intimacy. Approaching thoughts and feelings related to previous avoidance and acting in a manner consistent with the values of the mutual relationship allows couples to establish a stronger relationship. Intimacy can include emotional, cognitive, and behavioral intimacy and lead to the robustness of marital life. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy and schema therapy on marital forgiveness and intimacy of couples living in Tehran City, Iran.

The research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The study's statistical population included all couples living in District 2 of Tehran who referred to Amin–Pajooh, Nouranipour, Mehr, Binesh, Rah–e–Farda, and Erfan counseling centers between April and June 2017. Among those referred to these centers, 60 people (30 couples) were randomly selected and assigned into three groups: schema therapy (20 people), acceptance and commitment therapy (20 people), and a control group (20 people). The study data were obtained using the Marital Intimacy Scale (Walker and Thompson, 1983) and Marital Forgiveness Questionnaire (Rye et al., 2001). Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (univariate covariance analysis, Bonferroni post hoc test) in SPSS version 22 software. The level of significance in this study was considered 0.05.

The results showed that acceptance and commitment therapy had a greater effect on marital forgiveness and intimacy than schema therapy (p<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the schema therapy group and the control group in forgiveness and marital intimacy (p<0.001).

Based on the study findings, acceptance and commitment therapy had a greater effect on couples' marital forgiveness and intimacy than schema therapy.