Investigating the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Self-compassion and Psychological Well-being of the Experienced-Infidelity Women Referring to the Counseling Centers of Shiraz

The aim of this study was investigating the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on self-compassion and psychological well-being of the experienced-infidelity women referring to the counseling centers of Shiraz, Iran, in the second half of 2018. The present research design was quasi-experimental with the control group through the analysis of covariance method. The research population included all the experienced-infidelity women in Shiraz that were sampled by purposive volunteer sampling. Among the experienced-infidelity women referring to 4 counseling centers of Shiraz, some were volunteer to participate in the study, thus 30 experienced-infidelity women were selected as the clinical sample and were assigned into two equal groups of experimental and control. Neff’s self-compassion Scale (SCS) and Ryff's scales of psychological well-being (SPWB) (short-form) were chosen as the tools of the study. The experimental group undergone 8 sessions of 90-minute intervention based on the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), but the control group did not received any intervention. The analyses of the inferential statistics of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the data. Statistical analyses were carried out by SPSS, version 25, software. The results of MANCOVA and ANCOVA indicated that the intervention being used caused the increase of self- compassion and psychological well-being of the experienced-infidelity women. Generally, it can be claimed that the intervention of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on the experienced-infidelity women was effective and is highly recommended. disappointment, and this is done due to the diffusion stage of the ACT. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on self-compassion and psychological well-being of experienced-infidelity women in Shiraz. The current research was an experiment with pretest-posttest design in which two groups of experiment and control were used. The statistical population of this study included all the experienced-infidelity women referring to the counseling center of Shiraz, and the clinical sample consisted of women referring to 4 counseling centers of Shiraz due to their husband infidelity and they were a volunteer to participate in the study. 30 individuals were selected by purposive volunteer sampling and based on the inclusion criteria (such as experiencing infidelity by a partner, low score in the self-compassion scale, low score in the psychological well-being scale and lack of drug use) they were randomly divided into two groups of control (15 individuals) and experimental (15 individuals). personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Questions are scored on a six-point Likert scale including 1. strongly agree; 2. somewhat agree; 3. a little agree; 4. neither agree or disagree; 5. a little disagree; 6. somewhat disagree; 7. strongly disagree. In a research by Khanjani et al. (2014), the results of single-group confirmatory factor analysis showed that six factors` pattern of this scale (self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, purpose in life, personal growth, autonomy) have the good fitting. Having used Cronbach’s alpha, internal consistency of this scale was obtained 0.72, 0,73, 0.52, 0.75, 0.76, and 0.51 in 6 factors of self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, purpose in life, personal growth, and autonomy, respectively, and the whole scale was 0.71. In this research, the reliability coefficient of Cronbach’s alpha of the psychological well-being was obtained as 0.83. (ACT) on the self-compassion and psychological well-being of experienced-infidelity women referring to the counseling centers in Shiraz. The results of the current research demonstrated that the use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has significantly increased the self-compassion of the women referring to the counseling and psychological centers in Shiraz. These findings were consistent with those of Zare and Rajabi (2017), Naeb Hassanzade, Fatollahzadeh, Saadati and Rostami (2016), Yadavaia, Hayes, and Vilardaga (2014). Some researchers (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson, 2012) reported that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) considerably accorded with Neff's conceptualization of self-compassion, and relational frame theory (RTF) (the basic knowledge of language and cognition which is the basis of acceptance and commitment; Barnes-Holmes and Roche, 2001) can be associated with the self-compassion as well (Neff and Tirch, 2013). According to the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), psychological flexibility includes 6 scales such as 1. The isolation of language and cognition (Defusion); 2. An open and intense experience of excitements and physical sensations (Acceptance); 3. Flexible and voluntary attention towards what happens in the present time (Contact with the present moment); 4. Observing self as a perspective from which life is experienced distinct from the identity or self-image (Self as Context); 5. Flexible and insistent self-directed behavior (Committed Action); 6. Freely choosing behavior qualities that internally promotes the behaviors (Values). There are similarities between self-compassion and psychology well-being. First, from the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) point of view, the core concept of Neff about self-kindness can be closely associated with self-compassion. The opposite of experiential acceptance, experiential avoidance, in the ACT includes awkwardly or inaccurately excessive assessment of self-experience, which highly leads to self- unworthiness. The acceptance of painful experience of self and oneself when he/she is injured can be a form of deep self-kindness. Next, according to relational frame theory (RTF), self-awareness involves direct relational frames (or establishing framework), defining as the frameworks which determine a relationship in terms of speaker’s point of view (Hayes