Effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on self-criticism of the women applying for divorce

INTRODUCTION: Making decision for separation from the spouse is one of the crises which are followed by unpleasant feelings such as self-criticism in the people. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) on self-criticism of the women applying for divorce. MATERIALS And METHODS: The research design was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, and control group type. The population included all the women applying for divorce who referred to an intervention-in-crisis center under the supervision of the organization of well-being in the city of Tehran in 2019. It had the convenient sampling method where the subjects were accommodated into two groups of fifteen women both in the experimental and control groups. The present study had the convenient nonrandom sampling method and the statistical population included 30 women from whom 15 women were accommodated into experimental group and so were 15 in the control group. Sampling method was in available, nonrandom type wherein 15 women were accommodated in the experimental group and so were 15 women in the control group. The experimental group participated in eight 90-min sessions of CFT and the control group did not receive any intervention. Before and after practical experimental administration, both the groups were assessed through self-criticism questionnaire by Smart et al. (2016). The statistical method used in the data analysis was ANCOVA. RESULTS: The results showed that at the error level of 0.5, after controlling the effect of pretest scores as a covariance factor, the mean of the experimental group was significantly lower than the mean of the control group, which shows that CFT approach has been effective in reducing self-criticism. CONCLUSION: As a result, CFT approach can help the people who face the crisis of making decision for divorce and self-criticism to be able to confront this issue effectively and achieve mental health.