The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training on Emotional Failure and Distress Tolerance of Women Prone to Emotional Divorce

Family is the foundation of both individual and social life and the core of married life.

The present research aimed to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based training on the dimensions of alexithymia and distress tolerance in women prone to emotional divorce.

This research was a semi-experimental pretest-posttest design with a control group. The study population consisted of married women prone to emotional divorce referring to psychological counseling centers in the city of Babol during the first quarter of 2023. A total of 30 patients were selected through a convenience sampling method and were randomly assigned to two groups: Experimental (n=15) and control (n=15). The Couple Burnout Measure (Pines, 1996), the Alexithymia Scale (Bagby et al., 1994), and the Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons and Ghaher, 2005) were used to collect data. The mindfulness-based training program, based on the Segal et al.’s (2002) model, was administered merely in the experimental group for eight 90-minute sessions. Data were analyzed via multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) using SPSS version 24.

The results demonstrated a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups regarding alexithymia, distress tolerance, and their components in women prone to emotional divorce (p<0.01). Overall, mindfulness-based training had a significant effect on both alexithymia and distress tolerance (p < 0.01).

Based on the results, mindfulness training had a significant effect on alexithymia and distress tolerance in women prone to emotional divorce. Therefore, this program can be utilized to help women prone to emotional divorce