The Effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy Based on Mindfulness on Anger Rumination and Psychological Well-Being in Couples Applying for Divorce

Background &

Psychological well-being is also one of the structures worthy of attention in the field of marital relations, reducing conflicts and divorce among couples. With an evolutionary view of human abilities, this model considers psychological well-being to consist of self-acceptance, purposefulness in life, personal growth, having positive relationships with others, mastering the environment, and self-following or autonomy. People with a high sense of well-being mainly experience positive emotions and have a positive evaluation of the events and events around them, while people with a low sense of well-being evaluate the events and their life situation as unfavorable and have mostly negative emotions. They experience anxiety, depression, and anger. Therefore, psychological well-being is the psychological component of quality of life and is defined as people's understanding of their own lives in terms of emotional behaviors psychological functions, and mental health dimensions It includes two parts of cognitive judgment (how people are progressing in their lives) and the level of experience. It is pleasant (all these factors contribute to people's satisfaction with life). People with this characteristic are mostly pleasant, altruistic, and capable of loving others and try to create a warm relationship based on mutual trust with others. The psychological well-being of couples applying for divorce is lower than normal couples. According to what was mentioned and numerous researches, mindfulness is one of the determining and effective structures for the rumination of anger and psychological well-being. Mindfulness leads to better quality of life, enjoyment of life, and reduction of depression and anger, and plays an important role in reducing short-term and long-term symptoms of emotions. The family forms the core of the society in successful marital relationships and marital relationships are satisfactory; Identifying the decisive and effective structures in this component provides the basis for a successful life for couples. On the other hand, couples facing divorce and marital heartbreak due to the increase of marital problems and conflicts between spouses, as well as their psychological problems and the reduction of negative emotions by focusing on the flaws in their relationship and rumination of anger about it, resort to marital violence. This issue makes them more prone to separation and divorce. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive therapy based on mindfulness on anger rumination and psychological well-being in couples applying for divorce.

The present study was semi-experimental, of pre-test-post-test type with control group. The statistical population of the current study included all couples who were referred to family intervention and counseling centers in the first quarter of 1401 from the family judicial complexes of Hamadan city due to conflict. Using available sampling method, 30 couples were selected and replaced in two experimental groups (15 people) and control (15 people) using random replacement method. The research tools included anger rumination scale by Sakadolovski et al. (2001), cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire by Garnevsky et al. (2001), Riff's psychological well-being questionnaire. The experimental group was taught communication skills for 8 sessions of 90 minutes in the format of one session per week, using the cognitive therapy method based on mindfulness. While the control group did not receive any training. The criteria for entering the research include; Age range of 20-55 years, obtaining written and informed consent, having minimum literacy, at least 2 years of cohabitation and exclusion criteria also include: being confused and not completing questionnaires, absenting more than two sessions, participating in similar educational courses. Was. Data analysis was done using univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to measure the effectiveness of mindfulness using SPSS-26 software.

The findings showed that the independent variable had a significant effect on anger rumination (F=6.79) and the significance value was smaller than (0.001). The comparison of the average scores shows that the cognitive therapy training based on mindfulness is effective in reducing the rumination level of anger of couples applying for divorce in the post-test stage. The effect size of the intervention is also 0.201. Therefore, it can be said that 0.20 of the differences between people in the post-test scores of anger rumination were related to the effect of the experimental intervention (cognitive therapy based on mindfulness). Also, in order to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive therapy based on mindfulness on psychological well-being and adjusting the effect of pre-test on post-test, analysis of covariance was used, which showed that the independent variable had a significant effect on the variable of psychological well-being (F=117.308) and a significant value smaller than (0.001). The comparison of the average scores shows that cognitive therapy training based on mindfulness has been effective in increasing the psychological well-being of couples applying for divorce in the post-test stage. In fact, 0.81 of the differences between individuals in psychological well-being post-test scores are related to the effect of mindfulness therapy intervention.

In explaining the results, it can be said that the rumination of anger through igniting anger; increases negative emotions and psychological helplessness. In fact, anger rumination motivates people to engage in aggressive behaviors to regulate negative emotions, and couples, following anger rumination, are likely to resort to violence as a coping strategy. Therefore, it seems that couples are exposed to divorce and marital heartbreak due to the increase in marital problems and conflicts between couples, as well as their psychological problems and the reduction of negative emotions by focusing on the flaws in their relationship and ruminating anger about it. They resort to marital violence, and this makes them more prone to separation and divorce. Couples who, in their conflicts and communication problems, constantly imagine angry memories of their spouse's behavior and ruminate on vengeful thoughts, feel that they are emotionally distant from their partner, and this leads to a drop in marital satisfaction. In fact, rumination of anger by increasing the level of arousal and preventing adaptive problem solving, causes if a problem occurs between the couple and the people around them (including children and relatives), it leads to a disruption in these communications by increasing tension; This ultimately leads to a decrease in the mental experience of personal happiness and satisfaction in marital relationships and as a result, couples tend to separate and divorce. It can be said that mindfulness training simultaneously creates a feeling of physical relaxation through relaxing muscle tension and paying deep and focused attention to the senses, objects, and words, as well as emptying the mind of negative thoughts and saturating it with positive thoughts, acceptance, patience; Passing over the result orientation, creating a sense of oneness and unity with existence, floating in the intellectual vacuum and living in the present, gradually filling the gap between intention and action, leading to a decrease in the amount of anger and its projection and physical expression by people in different situations. The overall conclusion showed that the findings showed that cognitive therapy based on mindfulness has a significant effect on anger rumination and psychological well-being. Considering the effectiveness of this approach, it is suggested that the techniques and methods of this approach be used by family and marriage therapists to increase intimacy and also reduce rumination, anger, emotion management.