The Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) on Improving Marital Adjustment and Enhancing Trust among Couples Referring to Counseling Centers in Behbahan

Marital life, as one of the most important social institutions, plays a significant role in mental health, quality of life, and family stability. Marital adjustment and trust between spouses are key components of successful and stable relationships, and a decrease in these components can lead to increased conflicts, reduced marital satisfaction, psychological problems, and even separation. Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), as one of the modern therapeutic approaches for couples, focuses on identifying and managing negative emotions, strengthening emotional connections, and creating psychological security, and has been shown to positively impact the quality of marital relationships. However, limited studies have examined the effectiveness of EFT within the cultural and social context of Behbahan. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy on improving marital adjustment and enhancing trust among couples referring to counseling centers in Behbahan city. This study employed a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test and a control group. The statistical population consisted of ۳۰ couples who visited counseling centers in Behbahan. Using purposive sampling, ۱۵ couples were assigned to the experimental group and ۱۵ couples to the control group. The intervention consisted of Johnson’s EFT model, conducted over ۸ to ۱۰ weekly sessions of ۹۰ minutes each. The therapeutic process included three stages and nine steps (based on “Stepping into Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Key Elements of Change” by Laurie Brubacher, ۲۰۲۲) and was applied only to the experimental group. To measure the study variables, participants in both groups completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, ۱۹۷۶) and the Trust Scale (Rempel & Holmes, ۱۹۸۶) before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to assess the impact of the intervention on each variable. The findings indicated that Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy had a significant positive effect on both marital adjustment and marital trust. In other words, the mean scores of the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group in both variables, showing the effectiveness of the intervention in improving adjustment and trust between couples. The results suggest that EFT can be considered an effective and evidence-based therapeutic intervention for enhancing relationship quality, reducing conflicts, and improving emotional interactions between spouses. These findings highlight the importance of implementing targeted interventions in counseling centers and using evidence-based therapeutic methods to promote family mental health. The study provides valuable guidance for psychologists, family counselors, and policymakers in the field of family well-being.

کلیدواژه ها:

Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) ، Marital Adjustment ، Trust