The effectiveness of emotion focused education on sexual intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness of conflicting couples

The effectiveness of emotionally-focused education on several psychological variables has been shown, but the impact of sexual intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness on couples with marital conflict has remained neglected; So, does emotion-focused education affect couples' intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness?

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of emotion-focused education on sexual intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness of couples with marital conflict.

In this study, a quasi-experimental method with pre-test and post-test with control group was used. Thirty couples were selected from the statistical population of couples referring to Tehran psychiatric clinics in district 1 and were randomly assigned into two groups of 15 couples. Research instruments included Interpersonal Forgiveness Questionnaire (2000), Sexual Assault of Battalni et al. (2010). The findings were finally analyzed using ANCOVA test. The Johnson Approach (2012) training was administered to the experimental group couples for 8 sessions.

The results of covariance showed that training with emotion-focused approach had positive effect on increasing sexual intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness of couples with marital conflict (p≤0/001).

Based on this, it can be said that education with an emotionally oriented approach can be effective and can help counselors and psychotherapists to improve sexual intimacy and interpersonal forgiveness of couples.