The effectiveness of emotionally-focused couple therapy on differentiation and emotion regulation of women affected by marital infidelity

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of emotionally-focused couple therapy (EFCT) on differentiation and emotion regulation of women affected by marital infidelity. The method of the study was semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population included all women affected by marital infidelity who were referred to counseling centers in Gorgan in the first 9 months of 1399. Using the purposive sampling method, 30 people were selected and randomly divided into experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. The experimental group received emotionally-focused couple therapy in 12 sessions of 90 minutes twice a week and The control group did not receive any intervention. The research instruments were the Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI) of Scorron and Fried Lander (1998), and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) of Garnfsky et al (2002). Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and Beferroni post hoc test using SPSS-16 software at a significance level of 0.05. Findings showed that EFCT had a significant effect on differentiation (F=28/48, P<0.001) and emotion regulation (F=21/39, P<0.001). According to the results, it can be stated that emotionally-focused couple therapy can be used as an effective intervention to improve differentiation and emotion regulation in women affected by marital infidelity.