The Effectiveness of Couple Therapy with Schema Therapy Approach on Disaffection and Marital Commitment in Couples

Introduction: Increasing the level of marital disaffection and decreasing marital commitment in couples gradually results in coupleschr('39') involvement in a stressful and frustrating relationship and eventually leads to weakening the marriage. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the couple therapychr('39')s effectiveness with the schema therapy approach to reduce marital disaffection and improve marital commitment in couples referring to counseling centers in Mahabad. Methods: The study was quasi-experimental with the pretest-posttest design, and a follow-up test was conducted with a control group. The study population consisted of all couples who referred to counseling centers in the second half of 2019. To this end, 30 couples with marital problems and conflicts were selected by a purposive sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental group (15 couples) and control group (15 couples). The data were collected using the Marital Disaffection Scale (MDS) and the Marital Commitment Questionnaire (MCQ), which was performed as the pre-test, post-test, and two-month follow-up. Couples in the experimental group participated in 10 sessions of 2 hours per week, but the control group did not receive this training. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Results: The findings indicated that there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of marital disaffection and marital commitment in the pre-test stage (P >0.05), but there was a significant difference between them in terms of both variables of marital disaffection and marital commitment in the post-test stage (P <0.05). In other words, couple therapy by schema therapy approach reduced marital disaffection (F = 76.252) and increased marital commitment (F = 106.096) and their dimensions in couples. This improvement was also maintained in the follow-up phase (marital disaffection (F = 56.565) and marital commitment (F = 104.999). Conclusion: This studychr('39')s results have practical implications for the use of therapeutic intervention programs in which the schema therapy approach was employed to reduce marital problems caused by marital disaffection. Besides, on the basis of the findings of this study, the couple therapy training programs based on schema therapy can be exploited to improve marital commitment.