The effectiveness of systemic-constructive couple therapy on irrational beliefs and alexithymia in women seeking divorce

Numerous psychological factors are responsible for the occurrence of marital disputes and divorce among couples that need to be treated and controlled. Therefore, this study conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the systemic-constructivist couple therapy approach on irrational beliefs and alexithymia of women seeking a divorce. The method of this research was quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test and control groups. The study population included all women seeking divorce referred to counseling centers and family clinics in Tehran in the first six months of 2019, 30 of whom selected by purposive sampling and randomly in experimental and control groups. They assigned in equal proportions. The experimental group received the systemic-constructivist couple therapy approach in 9 sessions of 120 minutes (2 sessions per week); the control group placed on a waiting list. The irrational Beliefs Questionnaire by Jones (1968) and Alexithymia Questionnaire by Bagby et al (1994) used to collect data. Multivariate analysis of covariance used to analyze the data. Findings from the analysis of research data showed that by controlling the effect of pre-test, between the mean post-test scores of the experimental group and the control group in the variables of irrational beliefs (F = 48.78 and η2 = 0.72), And alexithymia (F = 45.23 and η2 = 0.68), there was a significant difference (P <0.001). Overall, according to the results of this study, it can be concluded that systemic-constructivist couple therapy as an effective intervention to correct irrational beliefs and reduce emotional dysfunction of women seeking a divorce, was effective.