Offering Attachment-Based Mindfulness Therapy and Evaluating Its Efficacy on the Quality of Love and Empathy in Women Who Have Experienced Marital Infidelity

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop an attachment-based mindfulness therapy and evaluate its effectiveness on the quality of love and empathy in women experiencing marital infidelity. The research method of the present study was a comparative analysis using the Breddy method in the qualitative part and a quasi-experiment with pretest, posttest and control group with two-month follow-up in the quantitative part. In the quantitative part, the statistical population included the women with marital experience who turned to counseling centers in the city of Tehran in the autumn 2020. For the study, 25 women with marital experience were selected through purposive sampling and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received eight sessions of attachment-based mindfulness therapy over two months. The questionnaires used in this study included Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale (STLS) and the Marital Empathy Scale (MES). Data from the study were analyzed using the variance method with repeated measures and SPSS23 statistical software. The results showed that attachment-based mindfulness therapy has acceptable content validity. Moreover, this therapy has an impact on the quality of love (P<0.001, Eta=0.54, F=32.94) and empathy (P<0001, Eta=0.66, F=46.45) in the women with marital infidelity. According to the results of the study, attachment-oriented mindfulness therapy can be used as an efficient method to improve the quality of love and empathy in women with marital infidelity by using theoretical concepts of mindfulness therapy and attachment.

Keywords

• marital infidelity
• attachment-based mindfulness therapy
• quality of love
• empathy