Comparing the Effects of Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Marital Conflict and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies

Background: Marital conflict can be described as the state of tension or stress between couples. Accordingly, couples who are unable to regulate their negative emotions experience fragile relationships. This study aimed to compare the effects of Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Cognitive Emotion Regulation (CER) strategies and marital conflict. Methods: The study sample included 28 married women who were randomly assigned to the EFCT and ACT groups. The questionnaire battery included the Questionnaire of Marital Conflicts, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Second Edition of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (SCID-II). Results: The result of the Independent Samples t-test indicated no difference in pretest scores of the study participants. However, significant differences were determined between the study groups in the posttest phase (P<0.001). Additionally, the Paired Samples t-test results revealed significant differences between pretest and posttest scores between the EFCT (P<0.001) and ACT (P<0.028 for marital conflict, P<0.001 for adaptive CER strategies, & P<0.031for non-adaptive CER strategies) groups. Moreover, EFCT was clinically more effective than ACT. Accordingly, the effect size of EFCT and ACT for marital conflict was measured as  2.33 and 0.83; respecting adaptive and non-adaptive CER strategies, these values were computed as 2.89 and 2.02 as well as 2.89 and 0.88, respectively. Conclusion: Overall, EFCT and ACTT were effective in improving marital conflict and CER strategies. Besides, EFCT was clinically more effective than ACT in this regard.