The effectiveness of narrative therapy on marital satisfaction and mental health of couples

 Marital relationship in life like any other relationship has positive and negative aspects.  One of the most important determinants of success in marriage is marital satisfaction and mental health, so the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of narrative therapy on marital satisfaction and mental health of couples.

The current research was a semi-experimental type of pre-test and post-test with a control group.  The statistical population of the research includes all couples who have been married for 1 to 5 years and had referred to Avai counseling center in Tehran due to marital dissatisfaction.  60 people (30 couples) were selected by available sampling and assigned to two experimental (15) and control (15) groups.  Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) were used to collect data.  The narrative therapy training package was held in 8 sessions of 90 minutes for the experimental group.  SPSS-24 software was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that narrative therapy increased the mental health of couples.Also, this program led to a significant difference in marital satisfaction between the experimental group and the control group.

 The results of this study showed that narrative therapy was an effective method to increase the mental health and marital satisfaction of couples;  Therefore, counselors and therapists can use narrative therapy to increase mental health and marital satisfaction.