The comparison of effectiveness of emotion-focused couple therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on covert relational aggression among women with marital conflicts

The purpose of this study was to comparison of effectiveness of emotion-focused couple therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on covert relational aggression among women with marital conflicts. This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest design with control group and follow-up 2 month. In this research, the statistical population was all women who referred to counseling centers in Tehran city in winter year 2023. In the first stage, using convenience sampling method, 45 women with a score of 111 and above in the marital conflict questionnaire of Barati and Sanai (2008) were selected and then randomly divided into 2 experimental groups (each group 15 people) and one control group (15 people) were replaced and experimental groups underwent emotion-focused couple therapy (10 sessions 90 minutes) and acceptance and commitment therapy (8 sessions 90 minutes). To collect data covert communication aggression scale of Nelson and Carroll (2006). Analysis of variance with repeated measures with SPSS software version 24 was used for data analysis. The results showed that both interventions had a significant effect on covert relational aggression among women with marital conflicts (P<0.05). In addition, the results of Bonferroni post hoc test showed that emotion-focused couple therapy is more effective in covert relational aggression (P<0.05). Based on the results of the present study, it can be said that emotion-focused couple therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy can be used as a treatment method to on covert relational aggression among women with marital conflicts in marital counseling centers.