Comparison of the Effectiveness of Self-Regulated Couple Therapy through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy on Reducing Couple Burnout in Divorce Applicants

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness self-regulated couple therapy that was done through dialectical behavioral therapy on reducing couple burnout in divorce applicants. In term of purpose, this is an applied research which adopted the quasi-experimental design for data collection, and was carried out in two pre-test-post-test stages with a two-month follow-up period with the control group. The statistical population included couples applying for divorce who had been referred to the family court of Bahonar branch in Tehran in 2018. Of this population, 24 couples were selected based on the convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into two groups of experimental (8 couples in each group) and control (8 couples). The subjects responded to the standard Pines (1996) Couple Burnout Measure (CBM) questionnaire in three stages of pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The experimental groups were trained for the dialectical behavioral therapy and self-regulatory couple therapy in eight 90-minutes sessions. No interventions were used for the control group. A data analysis in SPSS ver. 22 using repeated measures analysis of variance and an LSD analysis showed that self-regulatory couple therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy were effective in reducing couple burnout in the post-test and follow-up stages (P <0.01). However, the effect of dialectical behavioral therapy was greater on reducing couple burnout. Therefore, dialectical behavioral therapy and self-regulated couple therapy can be used as practical methods for reducing couple burnout, and hence preventing divorce.

Keywords

• dialectical behavioral therapy
• self-regulated couple therapy
• couple burnout