A Comparative Investigation of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment-based Therapy and Schema Therapy on Emotional Expression among Couples with Marital Burnout

Abstract

The present study was conducted with the aim of comparative investigation of the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based therapy and schema therapy on emotional expression among couples with marital burnout. This research in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test and two-month follow-up plan with a control group. The present study population was couples with marital burnout who referred to Astan Mehr Counseling Center in Mashhad in the spring of 2022 year. The sample size was 30 couples and 10 couples were considered for each of the three groups, which were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly replaced with the help of lottery in three equal groups. The first experimental group 8 sessions of 90 minute underwent the acceptance and commitment-based therapy, and the second experimental group 11 sessions of 90 minute underwent the schema therapy and during this time, the control group did not receive any intervention. The tools of the current research were the demographic information form and questionnaires of Pines' marital burnout (1996) and King and Emmons' emotional expression (1990) which whose psychometric indicators were confirmed. To analyze the data of this study were used from the method of analysis of variance with repeated measurements and Bonferroni's post hoc test in SPSS software. The findings showed that the methods of acceptance and commitment-based therapy and schema therapy in compared to the control group improved the emotional expression among couples with marital burnout and the results remained in the follow-up phase (P<0.05). Other findings showed that there was no significant difference between the methods of acceptance and commitment-based therapy and schema therapy in improving the emotional expression among couples with marital burnout (P>0.05). Considering the effectiveness of both methods on improving emotional expression and the lack of significant difference between them, it is suggested to counselors and therapists to use both mentioned methods along with other treatment methods to improve emotional expression.