Comparison of Effectiveness of Self-Compassion Therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy on Family Functions of Women Experienced Domestic Violence

Abstract

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of self-compassion‐focused therapy and emotionally focused couple therapy on family functions among women experienced domestic violence. This was a semi-experimental study with two experimental groups and one control group. The design was conducted using the pre-test, post-test and follow-up method. Based on this, 60 women with domestic violence experience, referred to the welfare centres of Tehran city in 2022, were selected on purposeful sampling and randomly assigned to three groups (20 women in each group). In order to collect information, family assessment device was used. At first, the participants were pre-tested, then experimental group1 was treated compassion‐focused therapy and experimental group2 was treated emotionally focused couple therapy. After the end of the training, the post-test was conducted on all participants, with an interval of one week. Two months later, the follow–up test was completed by 3 groups.. The results of variance analysis with repeated measurements applied to data. The results showed that both methods were suitable, but the emotionally focused couple therapy had a greater and more meaningful effect.

Keywords

• domestic violence
• emotionally focused couple therapy
• family functions
• self-compassion‐focused therapy