Effectiveness of Compassion Focused Therapy on Marital Conflicts in Women Applying for Divorce in Isfahan City Consulting Centers

Considering importance of marriage and growing statistics of divorce, methods to decrease marital conflicts and increase marital satisfaction hold great importance. Purpose of this study is to assess the usage of compassion focused therapy on marital conflict in women applying for divorce.

Methods and Materials: 

Method used in this study is semi-experimental with pre-test, post-test and control group. Statistical population constitutes women with marital conflicts, applying for divorce that came to Isfahan city consulting centers in year 2020. This study sample constitutes of 30 women that were chosen with convenience sampling method then put randomly in two groups, 15 women in experiment group and 15 women in control group. All participants filled marital conflict questionnaire Sanaei (MCQ) in pre-test, then experiment group went through 12 sessions (each 90 minutes) of compassion focused therapy package (Gilbert, 2014). Meanwhile control group did not face any intervention. In the end both groups were evaluated again. Data of the study were analyzed with single variant covariance analyze test.

Analyzing data show that, compassion focused therapy is significantly effective in decreasing marital conflicts and its sub-scales (reduction in cooperation and sexual relationship, increasing emotional reactions, increase in attracting children support, increasing personal relationship with relatives and separating financial matters from others) in experiment group (p<0.05).

Considering results of this study it can be said that compassion focused therapy can be effective in decreasing marital conflicts in women applying for divorce, therefore it can be used as a method to decrease divorce.