The Study of the Relation of Early Maladaptive Schemas and Differentiation with the Extent of Marital Adjustment

The effective factors on marital adjustment include personal traits, situational factors and life events. However, the studies conducted so far have shown that different cognitive media affect and direct the marital relations framework. As cognitive media, early maladaptive schemas, introduced by Young, originate from the individual's life events and differentiation as a personal trait seems to be a good predictive for marital adjustment. On this account, this study aims at predicting the marital adjustment in pre-marriage counseling sessions by studying the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and differentiation with marital adjustment.
the research is a descriptive-analytic study with correlation plan. The population of the study included all married individuals in Tehran with an estimated sample of 400 people. Sampling was a multiphase and accessible method in a way that primarily 5 regions were randomly selected among 22 zones in Tehran following by a random selection of counseling clinics, schools and culture centers in this region. The questionnaire was then issued and handed to those qualified for the survey. The exclusion criterion from the survey was having remarriage/divorce history, drug abuse or being under psychosomatic treatments.
Spanier Marital adjustment questionnaire, Young's schema short form (third edition), differentiation of self inventory were the tools applied for this research. In order to analyze the data, correlation test, regression analysis and T-test were used.
The findings of the study showed that there is a significant but inverse relationship between all early maladaptive schemas with marital adjustment (p This research was carried out to find out the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and differentiation of self in The Married with marital adjustment. The findings of the research indicate and prove the relationship between these two variables and marital adjustment. The findings showed that formation of early maladaptive schemas during childhood and its consequent personal and behavioral structure in adulthood, affect the individual's adjustment in marital life. In this regard, schemas of shame and defect were proved to have the highest predictability potential for marital maladjustments. The inverse relation of three aspects of differentiation of self (except for "my status" aspect), with marital adjustment could mean that people with intimate and border free relations mingled with family members are more likely to fail in regulating and controlling their communicational and even emotional borders which consequently results in experiencing maladjustments in relations with their partner. Thus, early maladaptive schemas and differentiation of self can be applied in the prediction of marital adjustment.