The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Psychological Coherence and Emotional Regulation in Women with Extramarital Relationship Experience

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy on psychological coherence and emotional regulation in women with experience of extramarital relationships in Tehran in 1402. The current research was a semi-experimental type with a pre-test-post-test design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population was all women with experience of extramarital relationship referring to psychological counseling and services centers in Tehran, who were selected by available sampling method and were placed in two experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. The experimental group received cognitive-behavioral group psychotherapy intervention in 10 90-minute sessions, and the control group remained on the waiting list. The measurement tool used in the research was the psychological coherence Questionnaire (Kimaei et al., 2013) and the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski and Karaij, 2006). The analysis of the information obtained from the implementation of the questionnaire was done through the SPSS-v22 software in two parts: descriptive and inferential (covariance). The results showed that cognitive behavioral therapy has increased the psychological coherence in women who have experienced extramarital relationships. Also, the results showed that cognitive behavioral therapy increased emotional regulation in women with extramarital relationship experience. Therefore, it can be said that cognitive-behavioral group psychotherapy is an effective method to improve psychological coherence and emotional regulation in women with extramarital relationship experience.