Comparing the Effectiveness of Emotion-Oriented Therapy and Schema Therapy on Sexual Schemas, Fear of Intimacy and Self-Confidence in Prostitutes

The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of emotional therapy and schema therapy on sexual schemas, fear of intimacy and self-confidence in prostitutes.

The method of the current research was semi-experimental and applied, with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group and a three-month follow-up phase. The statistical population included all prostitutes with files in the women's rehabilitation center of Kermanshah welfare organization in 2022, 60 people were selected from the mentioned population by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to three equal groups, 15 people in each group. The research tools include the sexual schema questionnaire (Andersen and Cyranowski, 1994), the fear of intimacy questionnaire Descutner and Thelen (1991), the self-confidence questionnaire. The schema therapy protocol of Yang et al. (1996)  and emotion-oriented therapy were carried out in experimental groups.

The results showed that the F value of the within-subject effects of time and group interaction and time and group effects were significant in the variables of sexual schema, self-confidence and fear of intimacy, and the scores of the experimental groups were improved in comparison with the control group in the post-test and follow-up stages. The mean scores of sexual schema variables and fear of intimacy in the schema therapy and emotion-oriented groups in the post-test and follow-up stages had a significant change compared to the pre-test stage.

The study demonstrated that both emotional therapy and schema therapy effectively improved sexual schemas, fear of intimacy, and self-confidence among prostitutes.