The Effectiveness of Reality Therapy on the Improvement of Couples’ Family Functioning

Background & Aims of the Study: Disorder or disturbance in familyfunctioning is a serious threatens for family member’s mental health andcommunity health. Current study intended to examine the reality therapyon the improvement of couple s family functioning.Materials and methods: The design of the study is as quasi-experimentresearch (pre-test and post-test with follow up and control group).Statistical population consists all couples referring to the psychologicaland counseling centers of Rasht city in 2012. Samples were selected at firstby Convenience sampling method and after completing family assessmentdevice, and obtaining score for enter to research, were placement usingrandom sampling method in two experimental and control groups (N = 8couples per group). The experimental group participated in 12 sessions ofgroup counseling based on reality therapy and control group received nointervention. The gathered data was analyzed using covariance analysis.Results: The results show that there are significant differences betweenthe pre-test and post test scores of the experimental group. This differenceis significant at the level of 0.05. Therefore it seems that reality therapyimproved the family functioning of couples.Conclusion: The results indicated that reality therapy group counselingcan improve the family functioning, thus, using this approach in order toimprove and strengthen the family functioning of couples isrecommended.