The Effect of Emotionally Focused Therapy on Emotional Expression Styles Among Married Women

Emotion is a subjective sense, which affects and is affected by thoughts, behavior, and physiology. The main purpose of this research is to determine the effect of emotionally focused therapy (EFT) on emotional expression styles among married women referring to counselling centers in district 2 of Tehran. This research is a quasi-experimental study. Subjects of the study are comprised of 30 individuals referring to one of the counselling centers in district 2 of Tehran. The sample was selected by a purposive sampling technique among individuals who had a higher level of couple burnout, and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The participants were asked to fill in questionnaires including the Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (EEQ) and Ambivalence over Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (AEQ) developed by King and Emmons (1990) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(5), 864. EFT was than conducted on the experimental group in ten 90-min sessions, and after completion of each session, the experimental and control groups were asked to fill in the questionnaires again. The results showed that EFT had a significant effect on increase in emotional expressiveness, benign control, aggression control, and also on reduction in ambivalence over emotional expression, emotional Inhibition, and rumination or mental rehearsal. According to research results, it can be concluded that emotionally focused therapy affects the married women's emotional expression styles.