Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy in Groups on Psychological Well-being and Distress of Iranian Women with Addicted Husbands

Document Type : Original Article(s)

Authors

1 Professor, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, School of Psychology and Education, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, School of Psychology and Education, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background: This paper investigated the effectiveness of narrative therapy in groups on psychological well-being and distress among Iranian women with addicted husbands.Methods: The research was an experimental study with pretest-posttest control group design along with follow-ups of one month and three months. The statistical population consisted of all the women with addicted husbands who referred to welfare and social service houses of district 10 in Tehran, Iran. Participants were forty-four persons who had mental health score lower than the mean of statistical society. They were selected using the voluntary sampling method, and were also randomly assigned to two groups, experimental and control. After the early loss, each group included twenty persons and was evaluated by Mental Health Inventory (MHI-28). The experimental group received 10 sessions of the group counseling. Data were analyzed with repeated measure ANOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc test.Findings: The results showed that psychological well-being of women who received the sessions of group counseling "narrative therapy" was improved significantly rather than those who did not received that (P < 0.001), and psychological distress of them was reduced significantly in comparison to the women who did not participated in the sessions (P < 0.001).Conclusion: Based on these findings, it seems that narrative therapy in groups is effective in the promotion of psychological well-being of women with addicted husbands, and also could be effective in reducing their psychological distress. Therefore, it can be concluded that narrative therapy group interventions improve mental health of women with addicted husbands.

Keywords

References

  1. McGoldrick M, Giordano J, Garcia-Preto N. Ethnicity and family therapy. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2005.
  2. Yeganeh H, Su Z. An examination of human resource management practices in Iranian public sector. Personnel Review 2008; 37(2): 203-21.
  3. Friedman MM, Bowden VR, Jones E. Family nursing: Research, theory & practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 2003.
  4. Koutra K, Simos P, Triliva S, Lionis C, Vgontzas AN. Linking family cohesion and flexibility with expressed emotion, family burden and psychological distress in caregivers of patients with psychosis: A path analytic model. Psychiatry Res 2016; 240: 66-75.
  5. Flores PJ. Addiction as an attachment disorder. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson; 2004.
  6. Gao H. Women and heroin addiction in china's changing society. Abingdon, UK: Routledge; 2011.
  7. Miller PM. Principles of addiction: Comprehensive addictive behaviors and disorders. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press; 2013.
  8. Deci EL, Ryan RM. Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: An introduction. J Happiness Stud 2008; 9(1): 1-11.
  9. Drapeau A, Marchand A, Beaulieu-Prevost D. Epidemiology of psychological distress. In: L'Abate L, Editor. Mental illnesses: Understanding, prediction and control. New York, NY: InTech; 2012.
  10. Shallcross L. Working outside the box. Counseling Today 2011; 53(8): 26-31.
  11. Viv M. Developing a narrative approach to healthcare research. London, UK: Radcliffe Publishing; 2010.
  12. Duba JD, Kindsvatter A, Priddy CJ. Deconstructing the Mirror's Reflection: Narrative Therapy Groups for Women Dissatisfied with Their Body. Adultspan Journal 2010; 9(2): 103-16.
  13. Ricks L, Kitchens S, Goodrich T, Hancock E. My story: The use of narrative therapy in individual and group counseling. J Creat Ment Health 2014; 9(1): 99-110.
  14. Vromans LP, Schweitzer RD. Narrative therapy for adults with major depressive disorder: Improved symptom and interpersonal outcomes. Psychother Res 2011; 21(1): 4-15.
  15. Morgan ML, Brosi WA, Brosi MW. Restorying older adults' narratives about self and substance abuse. Am J Fam Ther 2011; 39(5): 444-55.
  16. Cloitre M, Henn-Haase C, Herman JL, Jackson C, Kaslow N, Klein C, et al. A multi-site single-blind clinical study to compare the effects of STAIR Narrative Therapy to treatment as usual among women with PTSD in public sector mental health settings: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 2014; 15: 197.
  17. Deasy C, Coughlan B, Pironom J, Jourdan D, Mcnamara PM. Psychological distress and lifestyle of students: Implications for health promotion. Health Promot Int 2015; 30(1): 77-87.
  18. Veit CT, Ware JE Jr. The structure of psychological distress and well-being in general populations. J Consult Clin Psychol 1983; 51(5): 730-42.
  19. Besharat MA. Reliability and validity of the mental health inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology and Personality 2006; 13(16): 11-6. [In Persian].
  20. Dryden W. Dryden's handbook of individual therapy. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; 2007.
  21. Payne M. Narrative therapy. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; 2006.
  22. White M, White MK, Wijaya M, Epston D. Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; 1990.
  23. Capuzzi D, Stauffer MD. Foundations of couples, marriage, and family counseling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; 2015.
  24. Hibel J, Polanco M. Tuning the ear: Listening in narrative therapy. Journal of Systemic Therapies 2010; 29(1): 51-66.
Addiction & Health
Volume 10, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
26
January 2018
Pages 1-10

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics