Comparing the Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy and Transdiagnostic Therapy on the Agreeableness of Women with Emotional Divorce

Arezoo  Omidpour; Iraj  Shakerinia; Bahman  Akbari

doi:10.18502/tbj.v24i2.19662

Arezoo Omidpour Ph.D. Student in General Psychology, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran
Iraj Shakerinia Associate Professor Department of Psychology, Gilan University, Rasht, Iran
Bahman Akbari Professor Department of Psychology, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/tbj.v24i2.19662

Keywords: Emotion-Focused Therapy, Transdiagnostic Therapy, Agreeableness, Emotional Divorce, Women

Abstract

Introduction Emotional divorce is a type of separation in which a husband and wife live together under the same roof, but there is no love or affection between them. The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy and transdiagnostic therapy on the acceptability of women with emotional divorce.

Methods: The research method was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group and a 3-month follow-up period. The statistical population consisted of 110 women with emotional divorce who referred to psychological counseling centers in Rasht in 2023, from which a sample of 45 people was selected through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to three groups. Gottman's Emotional Divorce Questionnaire (2008) and Costa and McCrae's Agreeableness Questionnaire (1992) were used to collect data. Greenberg and Johnson's (1988) emotion-focused therapy protocol was implemented for one group and Barlow et al.'s (2011) transdiagnostic therapy protocol was implemented for the other experimental group. A repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to analyze the data.

Results The results showed that emotion-focused (P˂0/001 and Eta=0/899) and transdiagnostic (P˂0/001 and Eta=0/906) treatments were effective on the agreeableness of women with emotional divorce. On the other hand, transdiagnostic treatment had a greater effect on the agreeableness of women with emotional divorce than emotion-focused treatment (P˂0/001). The persistence of these results was maintained until the follow-up stage.

Conclusion: Based on the aforementioned findings, it can be concluded that the use of emotion-focused and transdiagnostic treatment content and guidelines is useful in increasing the acceptability of women with emotional divorce.