Effectiveness of Group Therapy Based Performance Art on Improvement of Emotional Regulation and Reducing Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Women Affected by Marital Infidelity

Concealed relationships outside the marital relationship wich called "marital infidelity", are associated with severe psychological harm in the person being betrayed. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of group therapy based on performance art on improving emotional regulation and reducing symptoms of post traumatic stress in women affected by wife's infedility. The research design of this study was quasi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test by control group. 30 betrayed women in Tehran were selected by convinient sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups (each group of 15 individuals). While the experimental group received the group therapy based on performance art for 16 hours in two consecutive days and eight hours in per day, the control group did not receive intervention. All participants completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire of Garnefski et al (2002) and Post-Traumatic Stress Questionnaire of Fua et al (1997) in the pretest, post-test and one month follow up period. The results of covariance analysis show that women in the experimental group, in comparison with women in the control group, had significantly higher scores in emotional regulation and lower scores in post traumatic stress symptoms in post-test and follow up stages. The creative dimensions of the group therapy based on performance art by the creation of a group environment that facilitates the process of empathy and collaboration, and the sharing of personal problems, is fertile soil to improve the affective and emotional damage caused by the infedility of husband in betrayed women.