The effectiveness of cognitive processing therapy on rumination and fear of negative evaluation of betrayed women

Research evidence indicates that marital infidelity can have irreparable consequences for couples, and causes rumination and fear of negative evaluation in cheating women. Despite numerous studies on marital infidelity, treatment effective in reducing rumination and fear of negative evaluation of betrayed women has been neglected.

The present study was conducted with the aim of the effectiveness of cognitive processing therapy on rumination and fear of negative evaluation of betrayed women.

The method of the present research was practical in terms of purpose and semi-experimental in terms of method, pre-test-post-test with control group and three-month follow-up. The statistical population of this study included all the betrayed women who needed counseling services in Bandar Abbas city in the second half of 2022. Among all counseling and psychological service centers in Bandar Abbas city, 30 women who had referred to ten centers due to infidelity of their husbands were selected by available sampling method and were randomly replaced in the experimental group and the control group. To collect data, rumination questionnaires (Hoeksma, 1991) and fear of negative evaluation (Lary, 1983) were used. The participants of the experimental group received 12 sessions of cognitive processing therapy according to Resik et al. (2007). The data were analyzed by analysis of covariance using SPSS-22 software.

The findings of the present study showed that the cognitive processing treatment led to the reduction of rumination and fear of negative evaluation of women in the tested group. (p> 0.01).

Based on the obtained results, it can be said that cognitive processing therapy was effective on rumination and fear of negative evaluation of betrayed women, and therefore the awareness of specialists in the fields of psychology, counseling and health about these treatments to reduce rumination and fear of negative evaluation of women