The effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on enduring the distress and self-control of betrayed women

Marital infidelity is one of the most important traumatic factors for couples and families, and is a common phenomenon for family and marriage therapists. It has a significant impact on the betrayed spouse. The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on enduring the distress and self-control of betrayed women. The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. Of all the betrayed women who referred to the Family Counseling Office in District 3 of Tehran in the first 6 months of 2019, 34 women were selected based on their availability and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group then experienced acceptance and commitment therapy in 8 sessions. Participants in the present study were asked to complete data collection tools including Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) and Self-Control Scale (SCS) in both pre-test and post-test stages. The results of the present study showed that acceptance and commitment therapy has a significant effect on increasing the tolerance of distress and self-control of betrayed women (P = 0.0001). According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can be used as an intervention method for marital infidelity and as one of the methods of intervention in treatment and counseling sessions.