Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Sexual Assertiveness of Women with Emotional Divorce

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on sexual assertiveness in women with emotional divorce. This research was a experimental study based on pretest-posttest design with a control group and a follow-up stage. The statistical population of this study consisted of all women referred to psychological counseling centers in district 1 of Tehran in 2018. Among the women who had the criterions for entering the research, 30 persons were selected by Available sampling method and assigned randomly into experimental and control groups (each group with 15 members). Both the experimental and control groups completed the Hurlbert’s Sexual Assertiveness Scale. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 90 minutes, Once a week, sessions for the training group therapy were based on acceptance and commitment. Data were analyzed by using analysis of variance with repeated measure. The results showed that the level of sexual assertiveness of the experimental group was significantly increased compared to the control group and this increase was remained steady in the follow-up. Therefore, it can be concluded that teaching acceptance and commitment therapy can increase the sexual assertiveness in women with emotional divorce and therapists can use this approach to improve the relationship between couples and reduce emotional divorce.

Keywords

• acceptance and commitment therapy
• emotional divorce
• sexual assertiveness