The Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Cognitive Self-Regulation of Emotion and Marital Intimacy of Women on the Verge of Divorce

This research was conducted with the aim of determine the effect of dialectical behavior therapy on cognitive emotion self-regulation and marital intimacy in women on the verge of divorce.

The research method was applied in terms of purpose and quantitative in terms of data collection. This study was semi-experimental with a pretest and posttest design with control group. The research population was women on the verge of divorce referring to the counseling centers of five region of Tehran city in 2020 year, who from them 40 people after reviewing the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling method and with random method with lottery replaced into two equal groups. The experimental group 8 sessions of 90-minute underwent the dialectical behavior therapy and the control group did not see any training. The research tools were the Garnefski and Kraaij cognitive emotion self-regulation questionnaire of short version (2006) and Walker and Thompson marital intimacy questionnaire (1983). Data were analyzed with chi-square, independent t test and multivariate analysis of covariance methods in the SPSS-19 software.

The findings showed that the experimental and control groups did not have significant different in terms of age, education and type of marriage (P>0.05). Also, groups in the pretest stage did not have significant different in terms of cognitive emotion self-regulation and marital intimacy (P>0.05), but in the posttest did have significant different in terms of them (P<0.05). In the other words, dialectical behavior therapy led to increase the positive strategies of cognitive emotion self-regulation and marital intimacy and decrease negative strategies of cognitive emotion self-regulation in women on the verge of divorce (P<0.001).

Based on the results of present research, therapists and counselors can use from dialectical behavior therapy method along with other therapeutic method to improve psychological traits of women on the verge of divorce especially improve their cognitive emotion self-regulation and marital intimacy.