Abstract
Marital dissatisfaction is one of the major issues of our times. The purpose of the study is to assess reduction in this dysfunction by the use of cognitive behavioral interventions. When these interventions are employed to decrease dissatisfaction in marriage the focus is to bring about a change in thinking patterns, cognitive features and style of information processing along with the employment of effective strategies to resolve problems in marriage. It was hypothesized that couples who received cognitive behavioral interventions would be able to reduce the frequency of their dysfunctional thinking (Cognitive Distortions) as compared to couples who did not receive the interventions. For the study 50 married couples were randomly allocated into two equal groups: the experimental group (the couples who received the treatment) and the control group (waited for the treatment to be given). Demographic information relating to age, gender, educational qualification, number of years of marriage, number of children and the socioeconomic status, was obtained from participants in both experimental and control groups. The mean age of the males in the experimental group was 39.24, and mean age of their spouses was 35.20. Whereas the mean age of males in the control group was 41.64 and the mean age of their spouses was 36.72. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Findings of the study demonstrated that couples who received cognitive behavioral interventions showed marked reduction in distorted thought patterns compared to couples who did not receive the interventions. The study findings have significant implications for clinicians who are dealing with marital issues.