Comparison of the Effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Therapy and Self-Compassion Skills Training on Differentiation of Self and Sexual Intimacy of Women Affected by Marital Infidelity

Abstract

Background: The main purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Therapy and self-compassion skills training on differentiation of self and Sexual Intimacy in women affected by Infidelity.Methods: It was a quasi-experimental study and the statistical population included all women affected by Infidelity in Mashhad in 2019-2020. A statistical sample of 45 women were selected using available sampling and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). The intervention groups received emotionally focused training and self-compassion separately for 8 sessions of 90 minutes and the control group was on the waiting list. The Differentiation of Self-Inventory Revised(DSI-R) of Skowron and Schmitt (2003) and the Sexual Intimacy Questionnaire of Batlani et al. (2010) were used to collect data. Data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance using the SPSS 24 software.Results: The results showed that both treatments were effective in increasing the level of differentiation of self and Sexual Intimacy, but the effectiveness of training of the emotionally focused approach to self-compassion in the differentiation of self was tangible and significant (p <0.05).Conclusion: The findings showed that the emotionally focused therapy training can be used as an effective intervention to improve the psychological resilience of women affected by Infidelity through creating new patterns in the relationship.