Background: Marriage is a social process that forms the basis and principle of human communication. In many couples, primary positive feelings decrease in time and are replaced by severe conflicts. What is of high importance is the couples' reaction to these problems. Their ability to apply problem-solving skills can be a factor in the improvement of the couples' relationship. Methods: A quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest design and control group was applied. The statistical population included all conflicted couples referring to consultation centers in the city of Isfahan in 2016. The subjects were recruited in voluntary form. The experimental groups included a group of cognitive-behavioral couple therapy (CBCT) (15 couples) and another group of acceptance and commitment couple therapy (ACT) (15 couples). Both groups received 12 ninety-minute sessions of therapy once a week. 15 couples were put into the control group. The study instruments were a questionnaire on demographic features and Barati and Sana'ie's questionnaire of marital conflicts. In order to analyze the data, besides descriptive statistical methods, COVARIANCE analysis was used in SPSS. Results: The results revealed that cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and acceptance and commitment couple therapy made significant changes in conflict decrease at the posttest stage (P < 0.0001). Also, comparing therapeutic groups implied that there is a significant difference between cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and the control group (P < 0.0001). Furthermore, comparison of acceptance and commitment couple therapy group with the control group showed significant differences (P < 0.0001). Comparing cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and acceptance and commitment couple therapy implied that there is no significant difference between the effects of these two therapeutic methods at the posttest stage (P > 0.05). Conclusions: According to the results, cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and acceptance and commitment couple therapy made significant changes in conflict decrease at the posttest stage and there was no significant difference between the effects of these two therapeutic methods at the posttest stage. Therefore, the present study provides experimental support for both therapies in order to decrease the marital conflicts.

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Background: Marital life is based on effective reciprocal relations such as quality of communications with the spouse’s family. Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on negative feelings of the women toward their husband’s family and marital conflicts. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and follow-up with a control group. The statistical population included all women referring to Rahgosha Consultation Center in the town of Tiran (due to marital conflicts) in 2018. Thirty samples were selected using a convenient sampling technique. Then, the samples were randomly divided into two groups of experimental (15 women) and control (15 women). Women’s negative feelings toward the husband’s family and marital conflicts questionnaires were used to collect data. The experimental group received seven ninety-minute sessions of cognitive-behavioral group therapy. Finally, a posttest was performed for both groups. Moreover, the follow-up stage was administered a month after the posttest on both groups. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data at descriptive statistics, and MANCOVA was used at the inferential statistics level through SPSS21 software. Results: Cognitive-behavioral group therapy could effectively decrease both the women’s negative feelings toward their husband’s family and marital conflicts (P < 0.05). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral group therapy can be applied to decrease negative feelings toward the husband’s family and to address marital conflicts.

INTRODUCTION: Making decision for separation from the spouse is one of the crises which are followed by unpleasant feelings such as self-criticism in the people. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) on self-criticism of the women applying for divorce. MATERIALS And METHODS: The research design was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, and control group type. The population included all the women applying for divorce who referred to an intervention-in-crisis center under the supervision of the organization of well-being in the city of Tehran in 2019. It had the convenient sampling method where the subjects were accommodated into two groups of fifteen women both in the experimental and control groups. The present study had the convenient nonrandom sampling method and the statistical population included 30 women from whom 15 women were accommodated into experimental group and so were 15 in the control group. Sampling method was in available, nonrandom type wherein 15 women were accommodated in the experimental group and so were 15 women in the control group. The experimental group participated in eight 90-min sessions of CFT and the control group did not receive any intervention. Before and after practical experimental administration, both the groups were assessed through self-criticism questionnaire by Smart et al . (2016). The statistical method used in the data analysis was ANCOVA. RESULTS: The results showed that at the error level of 0.5, after controlling the effect of pretest scores as a covariance factor, the mean of the experimental group was significantly lower than the mean of the control group, which shows that CFT approach has been effective in reducing self-criticism. CONCLUSION: As a result, CFT approach can help the people who face the crisis of making decision for divorce and self-criticism to be able to confront this issue effectively and achieve mental health.

Introduction: Marital satisfaction is one of the most important signs of a favorable relationship between couples. This research aimed to survey the effectiveness of training using Bowen's family therapy approach on marital satisfaction of married women in the city of Aligodarz (In the west of Iran). Method: This study was a quasiexperi mental study using a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of counseling applicant married women in the city of Aligodarz in 2019. By convenience sampling, 30 married women were selected and participated in this study. After recording the subjects' scores in the pre-test stage, the experimental group was exposed to the intervention (training course), but no operations were performed on the control group. Data gathering was carried out using a demographic questionnaire and ENRICH marital satisfaction scale. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation indices were used to describe and Chi-square test was used to examine the homogeneity of the two groups in terms of study variables and multivariate analysis of covariance were performed in SPSS 24 software with a significancel level of 5%. Results: Descriptive findings showed that the mean (standard deviation) of the total score of the marital satisfaction variable in the pre-test and post-test stages was 131.60 (26.89) and 142.81 (25.24) in the experimental group and 132.66 (24.09) and 132.26 (21.92) in the control group, respectively. The inferential findings showed that Bowen's family therapy approach has a significant effect on some of the dimensions of marital satisfaction (religious orientation, equality of women and men, children and parenting, sexual relation, financial management, conflict resolution, and marital satisfaction) (p< 0.05). On the other hand, this approach was not practical in improving other aspects of marital satisfaction (relationship with family and friends, leisure time, marital relationship, personality issues, and contractual responses) (p> 0.05). Conclusion: The present study results showed an increase in marital satisfaction of married women using the Bowen family therapy approach. Therefore, it is recommended to use Bowen's family therapy approach to improve women's marital satisfaction with family problems.