The Effectiveness of Emotion Focused Therapy on Self Handicapping, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Life Orientation in Divorced Women

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on self -handicapping, interpersonal communication skills and life orientation in divorced women referred to counseling centers in Isfahan. The research was semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test design with a control group and a one-month follow-up which was performed in the fall of 2020. For this purpose, among the referents, 28 women who met the criteria for entering the research were selected with the convenience sampling and randomly replaced in two experimental and control groups. The participants of the experimental group received Goldman and Greenberg's emotion-focused therapy individually for 9 sessions of 90 minutes. They answered the questionnaires of Jones & Rudwalt Self-handicapping, Jerabek Interpersonal Communication Skills and Scheier & Carver. Life Orientation [1]in three phases. For data analysis variance with repeated measures was used. Finding indicated reduction in mean of self-handicapping and improvement in interpersonal communication skills and life orientation in experimental group in comparison to control group. Based on the findings, for reduction of self-handicapping and improvement in interpersonal communication skills and life orientation in divorced women emotion focused therapy can be used.

Keywords

• divorced women
• emotion focused therapy
• interpersonal communication skills
• life orientation
• self- handicapping