The Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy on the Self-concept and Social Adjustment of Divorced Women

Background:The personal and social harms of divorce have a significant impact on the mental health of those who have experienced it.Therefore, it is important to implement strategies to address the effects of this social problem.This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of narrative therapy on the self-concept and social adjustment of divorced women.Methods: The current study used a quasi-experimental design including a pretestposttest with a follow-up phase and a control group.The study population consisted of divorced women who sought help from private counseling and psychotherapy centers in Tabriz in 2023.Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 30 participants were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and the control groups (15 participants for each group).Data were collected using Rogers' self-concept questionnaire (1957) and Bell's social adjustment questionnaire (1961) in three phases, before, after, and three months after the intervention during the follow-up phase.Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance using SPSS-24 software.Results: In the pre-test phase, the mean score of the self-concept and social adjustment in the experimental group were 23.937.116and 97.0717.572,respectively.While in the control group, they were 13.2710.082and 81.2718.90 in a row.In the post-test phase, these values showed significant differences in the experimental group on both self-concept and social adjustment variables compared to the control group (p<0.001).Follow-up assessments revealed that the effects of narrative therapy were long-lasting (p<0.001). Conclusion:Given the effectiveness of narrative therapy on the self-concept and social adjustment of divorced women, it can be concluded that counselors and psychotherapists can improve the mental health of divorced women by combining narrative therapy with other therapeutic approaches.