The effectiveness of imago therapy on marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards the spouse among the men with marital conflicts

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Marital satisfaction and positive emotional experience towards one's spouse has always been effective in preserving and surviving the family, therefore one of the concerns of family specialists is to improve these two structures in the family. This research was conducted with the aim of the effectiveness of imago therapy on marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards spouse among married men with conflict in Isfahan city.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

The research was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population was all married and conflicted men of Isfahan city in the year 1400, from whom a sample of 40 people was selected as available and non-randomly placed in an experimental group and a control group. The measurement tools were Inridge marital satisfaction scale with Cronbach's alpha above 0.80 and emotional experience towards spouse with Cronbach's alpha above 0.92 for each subscale). Both research groups were evaluated by research tools before and after training. While the control group was on the waiting list, the experimental group received Imago therapy. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate covariance analysis).

RESULTS:

The results showed that imago therapy had a significant effect on the improvement of marital satisfaction and the dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse (P = 0.01).

CONCLUSION:

According to the present results, it can be said that this method can help family counselors to use this method to improve marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards the spouse and thereby reduce marital conflicts. He used this integrated method.

Introduction

Among all institutions, organizations and social institutions, the family has the most important, valuable, and effective roles, and it has educational and social importance. Individuals enter the realm of existence through the family, and the society derives its existence and consistency from the formation of individuals, and since the institution of the family is a generator of human power and the expression of other social institutions, the reformation of family structures is considered one of the basic pillars and main institutions of every society. In a way that helps marital satisfaction is one of the important concerns of family researchers,[1] but how long it can remain stable depends on how the couple interacts. Family members, because they have many interactions with each other, may cause marital conflicts among them, so that in this way, couples have better emotions towards each other, and as a result, marital conflicts will occur less.[2]

Among the factors that can be damaged under the influence of marital conflicts and drive couples further apart is the decrease in marital satisfaction.[3,4] In fact, the occurrence of such a situation causes the couple or one of them to perceive a great distance between the existing situation and the ideal situation and to strive to fill this gap. Marital satisfaction can be seen as the result of general satisfaction with life together, satisfaction with sexual relations and emotional and emotional satisfaction.[4] Marital satisfaction is the compatibility of marital behaviors of couples with each other and the presence of understanding, empathy, and love between them. In other words, marital satisfaction is the existence of a friendly relationship with logic, understanding, mutual understanding, satisfying the material and spiritual needs of men and women. In fact, for many, getting satisfaction from the marital relationship is considered the most important source of satisfaction, even more important than sources such as work, friends and even children. On the other hand, it should be noted that marital satisfaction is a general assessment of the status of a person's current marital relationship or romantic relationship. Therefore, marital satisfaction can be considered as a psychological situation that does not arise by itself, but requires the efforts of both couples. Based on this, marital satisfaction is the result of the compatibility of the husband and wife in different aspects of their joint life, which guarantees the strength of the family foundation.[5]

But in the light of marital satisfaction, the positive emotional reactions of spouses towards each other can be hope, love, interest, and optimism, which is positive, but with the decrease of marital satisfaction, the emotional experience towards the spouse may also be damaged, and the couple experiences emotions such as disappointment, pessimism, experience depression, anxiety, anger and hostility, and hatred towards the spouse. Positive emotions towards the spouse can prevent exaggeration of the spouse's problems and play a significant role in marital satisfaction. Although many couples think that their problems are caused by communication characteristics or the characteristics of their spouses, but scientific facts show that childhood experiences play a prominent role.[6] Emotional experiences towards the spouse refers to the experiences that one of the spouses' experiences towards their spouse in marital, relational or family situations. In general, excitement consists of reactions that are activated by events and create feelings and excite the body and create a motivational state. Emotional reactions towards the spouse can be positive, such as hope, love, interest, and optimism towards the spouse, or negative, such as disappointment, pessimism, depression, anxiety, anger, hostility, malice, and hatred towards the spouse. Positive emotions towards the spouse can prevent exaggeration of the spouse's problems and play a significant role in marital satisfaction.[6]

Until now, various methods have been formed and used to modify family structures, one of these methods is imago therapy. Imago therapy in marital relationships is a tool to achieve a conscious relationship and mutual conscious therapy that facilitates the healing of childhood injuries between spouses. Based on a theoretical principle, there is the belief that people choose their spouses based on an unconscious image of a person who can complete them, which is called imago or childhood ideal.[7] This mental image is a mixture of the mental representation of our parents or guardians, especially the negative traits that have caused the most emotional damage to us and the main and primary aspects of our existence that have been lost in the process of adapting and adapting to social expectations. It is a missing link in this relationship.[2] These mental images are searched for in people such as life partners with whom they have a close interaction and relationship, so that they do not create conditions again, so that they do not experience the mental damage caused to them, and they can solve the problem that remains in their minds forever. End childhood. Therefore, they look for a person who is like a parent or a primary caregiver and can give them what was not given to them in their childhood and on the other hand heal the psychological pains of childhood.[8] The imago process involves committing and binding oneself to understanding one's own and one's spouse's emotional injuries in order to learn new skills and interpret hurtful and harmful behaviors. And that is in the path in which he meets the needs of his wife and brings back the lost and denied pieces of their existence to them so that they can reach spiritual and spiritual evolution in this way. The main goal of this treatment is to restore the integrity and vitality in one's core and in this direction, the metaphor of four journeys is used during the treatment, which are: the cosmic journey that leads to the feeling of oneness, the evolutionary journey that leads to the feeling of security, the social journey, which is the result of completion, and finally the psychological journey, which leads to the improvement of unsatisfied needs and the experience of a sense of distinction.[7]

So far, various researches have been carried out that have shown the effectiveness of imago therapy method on family structures, such as Moazhi, Mokhtari and Amiri on sexual intimacy,[9] Refai, Asadi, Khajund Khoshli on the control of female applicants. Talaq,[10] Nikkhah, Behbodhi and Vakili on the quality of married life,[11] Heydari and Hanparrovan on family stability,[12] Cherai, Guderzi and Akbari on marital intimacy.[13] The review of research literature showed that there is no published research on the effectiveness of this method on marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards the spouse.

In general, the decrease in marital satisfaction can lead to a decrease in positive emotional experience towards the spouse and increase negative emotions and provide the path to marital conflicts and the risk of family collapse. Therefore, improving marital satisfaction and reducing negative emotional experiences on the one hand and increasing positive emotions on the other hand can help to maintain and maintain effective and calm. Therefore, this research aimed to answer this question, does imago therapy have a significant effect on marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards the spouse?

Materials and Methods

Study design and setting

This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of imago therapy on marital satisfaction and emotional experience towards the spouse among married men, since the selection of the subjects was available and their assignment in the experimental and control groups was non-random, so this research is of the type It was semi-experimental. The statistical population was all men with family conflict in Isfahan city in 2022.

Study participants and sampling

To select the sample, first the announcement of the training course was held and distributed in the counseling centers of the city. Then, 40 people were selected from among the volunteers participating in the course. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (male gender and being married, having a married life history of more than three years, having marital conflicts and obtaining a score higher than 108 in the marital conflicts questionnaire, there were 54 questions, the maximum score of which was 216, and obtaining a score higher than Half was considered as the cut-off point, age range of 30–50 years, having at least diploma literacy, not suffering from mental diseases (which was checked by conducting a preliminary interview), full consent and consent to participate in the research, full consent For their spouses to attend the sessions and exit criteria are: absence of more than two sessions, irregular attendance in treatment sessions, non-cooperation with the researcher and participation in psychological training courses at the same time.

To carry out the sampling process, after obtaining the necessary permits, counseling centers available to the researcher throughout the city were informed about the implementation of this plan (six counseling centers with a license from the psychology system and a license from welfare) and an advertising sheet related to the course in these centers. Installed In this announcement, it was announced that this course will be held at the Salam Counseling Center on Thursday afternoons from six to seven thirty in the afternoon and for eight weeks. Then, among the volunteers (48 people), 40 people who met the entry and exit criteria were selected and then randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Then, from among the registered people (48 people), 40 people who met the entry and exit criteria were selected and then randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Also, while getting the cooperation of the control group to complete the questionnaires, they were told that eight weeks later, a special course was formed for them. It should be noted that none of the members of the control and experimental groups knew each other before. Then the experimental group was exposed to eight training sessions of imago therapy while the control group was on the waiting list. The trainings were held once a week in the afternoon in one of the counseling centers in Isfahan. All subjects in both groups were evaluated by research tools before and after training. Table 1 shows the content of the training:

Table 1.

Summary of imago therapy training sessions[14]

Session number	Topic of the meeting	Purpose and description of the meeting
First session	Communicating with members and committing to responsible change, examining the mental image of the relationship	Content: familiarizing the members with each other, the instructor and the rules of the group, examining a mental picture of the ideal love relationship, determining the desirable characteristics in the relationship and the expected desirable characteristics Assignment: Preparing a list of existing and expected desirable features
Second session	Investigating childhood wounds and injuries by reviewing childhood memories and examining the history of intimate relationships, discovering the main failures of childhood	Returning to the childhood home and reviewing the memories of that time, examining the couple's attachment style, writing down the positive and negative characteristics of parents, examining the unfulfilled needs for emotional connection, explaining the brain's reaction to communication failures Task: writing positive and negative characteristics of parents, determining the unfulfilled needs of childhood
Third session	Training and practice of imagistic dialogue	Teaching the three parts of imagistic dialogue: reflecting, confirming, and empathizing by listening well and practicing it in the meeting Homework: Practicing conscious dialogue (based on the three taught sections)
Fourth Session	Deep understanding of the spouse, his expectations and needs for emotional connection and investigating the effect of the hidden plans of the mind on current relationships	to the positive and negative characteristics of the spouse and writing them down, comparing the spouse with ideal mental characteristics, discussing, and discussing about falling in love from the perspective of communication imagery Assignment: Practicing conscious conversation and examining unmet emotional needs
Fifth Session	Re-romanticization by creating safe logic and healing emotional wounds, creating positive cycles of interaction, reducing negative relationships, and increasing positive relationships	Reviewing the good and sweet memories of the past in the couple's relationship, specifying unfulfilled wishes, specifying the current methods of pleasing the spouse, presenting unexpected gifts and doing joint recreational activities. Duty: Doing things that can make the wife happy.
Sixth session	Providing the opportunity for joint commitments and making sure to be together, identifying areas of conflict, conflict resolution methods and increasing the level of intimacy	Determining the ways out of the conflict, planning to use the specified solutions, teaching constructive methods of conflict resolution. Assignment: Specifying conflict prevention solutions and using them when conflicts occur.
Seventh session	Increasing feelings of security, happiness, and connectedness	Examining the unfinished and unresolved situations of the past, preparing a list of marital resentments and relationships with the spouse, specifying the desire and desires underlying each resentment, expressing requests in a positive way. Assignment: Preparing a list of infrastructure needs and communication and couple requests
Eighth session	Imagination of negative emotions, especially anger, in a safe and productive environment, resolving past resentments	Examining unresolved and unexpressed negative emotions, training to exercise constructively venting and restraining anger, empathy and forgiving each other for emotional injuries and deciding to make amends. Assignment: Training the spouse, controlling anger and ways to compensate for emotional injuries
Ninth session	The integrity of the self and the integrated self-image	Increasing self-awareness and recovering the lost self, accepting the false and denied self after accepting and applying positive and mature changes in the form of an integrated and balanced order. Homework: doing and reviewing the assignments of sessions seven and eight
Tenth session	The embodiment of love	The amalgamation of false, integrated, lost, and real selves. Talk about the changes they have observed in themselves and their spouses. Task: practicing embodied love, which leads to the practice of positive changes in the form of visualization and mental.

Data collection tool and technique

Enrich Marital Satisfaction Scale: The Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire was designed by Faure and Olson (1993).[15] which contains 35 items and its items are scored on a five-point spectrum from “completely agree with a score of 5” to “completely disagree with a score of 1.” A higher score is a sign of greater marital satisfaction. Furor and Olson have reported its correlation coefficient with other appropriate marital satisfaction questionnaires, which indicates its concurrent validity. The internal consistency coefficient of this scale with Cronbach's alpha method for satisfaction, communication, conflict resolution and ideal distortion subscales was 0.86, 0.8, 0.84, and 0.83, respectively, and the retest validity of the questionnaire was 86 respectively. 0.0, 0.81, 0.9, and 0.92 reported that it was significant. In Iran, Arab Alidosti, Nakhai, and Khanjani have reported that psychometric properties including concurrent validity and test-retest reliability for the whole scale and its subscales are appropriate.[16] The internal consistency for the entire scale in this study is higher than 0.80, which was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

Scale of emotional experience towards spouse: the items of this scale were designed by Yousefi and used by Ghofralhi et al.[6] The purpose of this scale is to measure the variable of emotional experience towards the spouse and it covers nine emotions (fear, anger, jealousy, sadness, anxiety and worry, joy and hope, love, hate) towards the spouse. Each subscale contains 5 questions that are scored on a 5-point scale from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Ghofralhi et al.[6] have reported its Cronbach's alpha as 0.92 and its psychometric properties as suitable. This questionnaire is divided into two sub-scales of emotions (positive joy and hope, love) and negative (fear, anger, jealousy, sadness, anxiety and worry and hate), both categories of emotions have the power to predict triangulation. Ghofralahi et al.[6] have introduced the positive relationship of negative emotional experience with triangulation as evidence of convergent validity and the negative relationship of positive emotional experience with triangulation as evidence of convergent validity. Also, two subscales have been extracted from exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis has also confirmed these two factors.

In order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate analysis of covariance) were used.

Ethical consideration

This research complies with research ethics and under the code of ethics of IR. IAU. KHUISF. REC. 1400. 041 approved by Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khorasgan), on the date of 28.04.2021

Results

Shalmel's statistical sample consisted of 40 married men with marital conflicts with an average (standard deviation) of (4.69 ± 46.13) years, who were in the age range of 37 to 48. In both groups, most of the women were in the age range of 38 to 45. All of them were living together with their spouses, and none of them were in the stage of divorce or separation, and all of them had higher than diploma education. In terms of occupation, all of them had government jobs and were employees.

In order to investigate the research question, multivariate covariance analysis was used. Table 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse by group.

Table 2.

Mean and standard deviation of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse based on experimental and control groups

Variable	Level	Mean±standard deviation
		Witness group	Imago therapy group
Marital Satisfaction	Pre-exam	14.44±97.40	16.00±117.15
	Post- exam	13.17±96.25	18.12±122.10
Positive emotional experience	Pre-exam	7.25±27.30	6.83±18.90
	Post- exam	10.15±26.75	28.95±4.87
Negative emotional experience	Pre-exam	14.65±99.70	15.59±126.00
	Post- exam	22.01±95.25	17.17±111.00

The results of Table 2 show that the scores of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience have changed in the post-test of the imago therapy training group compared to the control group. In terms of marital satisfaction and positive emotional experience, the average in the training groups has increased compared to the pre-test. In the negative emotional experience, the average in the training groups has decreased compared to the pre-test. Also, the results show that there is a difference between marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse of the training group in the pre-test and post-test stages. In order to check the significance of this difference, multivariate analysis of covariance test was used. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to check the normality of marital satisfaction scores and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse and the results showed that the distribution of scores of all three variables is normal. Levine's test was used to check the assumption of equality of variances. The results of this analysis showed that there is no significant difference between the variance of dependent variables in two groups.

The findings of Table 3 show that the variances of marital satisfaction scores and the dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse of the groups are not significantly different. This assumption of using covariance analysis test has been met. In order to equalize the covariances in the scores of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse in two groups, the box test was used. Table 4 shows the results of this analysis.

Table 3.

The result of Levin's test in order to check the equality of variance of marital satisfaction scores and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse in experimental and control groups

Variable	Statistic	Df1	Df2	Meaningful
Marital Satisfaction	2.818	1	38	0.137
Positive emotional experience	3.005	1	38	0.091
Negative emotional experience	1.558	1	38	0.220

Table 4.

The result of box test in order to check the equality of covariance of marital satisfaction scores and dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse in the experimental and control groups

Source of changes	Box test	F	df1	df2	Meaningful
Marital satisfaction, positive emotional experience, negative emotional experience	17.590	2.679	6	10462.189	0.053

Table 4 for box test shows that the difference of covariances of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse in two groups is insignificant. According to the confirmation of the assumptions, in order to compare the three groups, the multivariate analysis of covariance test was used. Table 5 shows the results of multivariate covariance analysis.

Table 5.

Results of multivariate analysis of covariance for marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse according to pre-test group

Source of changes	Test type	Sum of squares	df	Sum of squares	F	Meaningful	Eta squared	Test coefficient
Marital Satisfaction	Pre-Exam	1547.096	1	1547.096	13.432	1.00	0.277	0.946
	Group	550.837	1	550.837	4.783	0.036	0.120	0.812
	Error	4031.203	35	115.177
Positive emotional experience	Pre-exam	233.119	1	233.119	5.079	0.031	0.127	0.802
	Group	345.082	1	345.082	7.518	0.010	0.177	0.830
	Error	1606.467	35	45.899
Negative emotional experience	Pre-exam	2501.408	1	2501.408	18.415	0.000	0.345	0.986
	Group	750.616	1	750.616	5.526	0.024	0.136	0.8728
	Error	4754.175	35	135.834

As can be seen in Table 5, the average difference in three groups in marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards spouse is significant. This finding means that between the experimental and control groups, there was a significant change in the average score of marital satisfaction and dimensions of emotional experience towards the spouse from pre-test to post-test. The statistical power of marital satisfaction equal to 0.812, positive emotional experience equal to 0.830 and negative emotional experience equal to 0.828 shows the appropriate sample size for such a conclusion. The eta coefficient shows that 0.12% of changes in marital satisfaction, 17.7% of positive emotional experience and 13.6% of changes in negative emotional experience are related to education.

Discussion

The results showed that the imago therapy method was able to improve positive emotional experience and marital satisfaction.

In checking the databases, it was found that there was no published research on the effectiveness of this method on marital satisfaction and emotional experience. But the results of this research are in line with the results of other researches that have succeeded in showing the effect of other methods on marital satisfaction, such as Nik Amal, Salehi and Bermas by the schema therapy method,[17] reward, Yousefi, Turkan and Abedi the effectiveness of Gutman's couple therapy method,[18] Asgari Ganji and Nawabinjad have shown the effectiveness of communication skills training based on internal control on marital satisfaction, as follows. It can be concluded that this method, like other methods, has been able to improve this family structure.[19]

In explaining the effectiveness of this method on marital satisfaction and the experience of positive emotions and the reduction of negative emotions, it can be said that since marital satisfaction is a family structure that is affected by various factors, including the individual's past[20] and the attachment style, the couple's relationship. with his parents and his parents' relationship with each other is effective on the mental imagery of a person's communication and can have an effect on marital satisfaction with marital conflicts of individuals.[14] Therefore, this method has mechanisms that have been able to improve mental communication images and thus show a person how he can face the lack of dream love in married life and how to heal his childhood wounds. In fact, in this method, couples learned to save themselves from getting stuck in negative interactions by practicing conscious conversation by sharing their issues and concerns with each other, and to resolve the conflicts that arose in the relationship and have more intimacy. to experience the more interactions between the spouses and the more empathy these interactions have, the more satisfied the spouses will be with being together and in their marital relationship. Providing communication-oriented solutions leads to the fact that people find more problem-solving abilities in themselves and can use it appropriately when faced with various issues. This approach guides the couple to achieve empathy and intimacy, the need to achieve mutual understanding of each other and as a result to solve marital problems. Carrying out some exercises such as revising past romantic memories, giving unexpected gifts, and doing joint recreational activities leads to an increase in positive feelings and emotional closeness and a decrease in negative emotions such as anger, which increases intimacy and ultimately the frequency of differences and it reduces problems between couples.

On the other hand, in this method, there are exercises that have helped to move the emotional experience towards the spouse to a positive side and reduce its negative dimensions, such as the reconstruction of vision, which has led to the characteristics and behaviors in dream relationships Actively visualize and imagine and actively visualize their goals, which leads to improving relationships and achieving wholeness, the second point that they learned in this course is to control anger and respond to the norm of failure, which is achieved through imagistic chatter. Couples are taught how to change their behavior for a happier life.[7] It seems that all these approaches and techniques have helped to imagine negative emotions and thereby increase positive emotions. Yaband also found that the techniques of behavior change and purposefulness have also helped to improve mood and increase positive emotions.

Conclusion

In general, it can be concluded according to these findings that the imago therapy method is a suitable method for improving marital satisfaction and improving their emotional experiences towards their spouses, and family counselors can use this method to reduce the negative emotions of couples towards their spouses. both reduce and increase positive emotions and as a result provide them with marital satisfaction. In the whole research, like other researches, there were limitations such as the non-random selection of the subjects and the limitation of the results to married men with marital conflicts. The generalization of the results to other groups is cautious. It is suggested that family counselors use this method to correct emotional wounds and family issues.

Appreciation

This research is the result of a doctoral dissertation in counseling. In this way, we would like to thank all those who helped us in conducting this research, especially the married men who along with their wives helped us in conducting this research.

Declaration of patient consent

The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form the patient(s) has/have given his/her/their consent for his/her/their images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patients understand that their names and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal their identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Financial support and sponsorship

This research is derived from the doctoral dissertation of Islamic Azad University, Isfahan branch (Khorasgan) and has not received any financial support. This research complies with research ethics and under the code of ethics of IR. IAU. KHUISF. REC. 1400. 041 approved by Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khorasgan), on the date of 28.04.2021

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.