Comparison of the Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) on Adolescents' Emotional Experiences of Parental Divorce

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and emotion-focused therapy on the emotional experiences of male adolescents resulting from parental divorce. The research method was quasi-experimental and included a pre-test, a post-test, a follow-up test, and a control group. In 2020-2021, the statistical population of the present survey comprised all male adolescents aged 15 to 18 who had experienced parental divorce in Bandar Abbas. The cohort consisted of 47 male adolescents who were chosen through a process of purposive sampling. Data was collected using the Emotional Experiences of Parental Divorce Scale (EEPD). SPSS-23 was used to conduct an analysis of variance with repeated measures on the data. Emotion-focused therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy significantly decreased simple painful emotions, complex painful emotions, and emotional needs in comparison to the control group (p˂0.01) and significantly increased adolescents’ emotional development (p˂0.01). Comparison of emotion-focused therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy revealed that emotion-focused therapy was more effective in reducing simple painful emotions (p˂0.02), complex painful emotions (p˂0.04), and increasing emotional development (p˂0.02) in the post-test stage; however, no significant differences were found in the follow-up stage. In general, therapists and counselors can utilize both approaches to reduce agonizing emotions and promote the emotional development of adolescents.

Keywords

• emotional experiences
• emotion-focused therapy
• parental divorce
• trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy