---
title: Does emotion-focused therapy help women cope better with premenstrual changes?
description: Both individual and couple emotion-focused therapy improved coping with premenstrual changes compared to no treatment. The improvements stayed steady over tim
url: https://niyora.com/research/papers/comparison-of-the-effect-of-individual-and-couple-emotion-focoused-therapy-on-2023/
---

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- Does emotion-focused therapy help women cope better with premenstrual changes?

Non-randomised trial, 2023

# Does emotion-focused therapy help women cope better with premenstrual changes?

Both individual and couple emotion-focused therapy improved coping with premenstrual changes compared to no treatment. The improvements stayed steady over time.

 Early or limited evidence

53 married women in Tehran

## What they did

53 married women in Tehran were split into three groups: individual emotion therapy, couple emotion therapy, or control (no treatment). Researchers measured how well they coped with premenstrual changes before treatment, right after, and again at follow-up.

## What they found

Both therapy groups showed much greater improvement in coping strategies compared to the control group. The improvement stayed stable over time. Individual therapy was more effective than couple therapy for the self-care and avoidance of harm parts of coping.

## What it means for you

Emotion-focused therapy may help women manage premenstrual changes better. Individual therapy worked better than couple therapy for some aspects of coping. The study was small and only included married women in one city.

53

Married women in study

2

Therapy types tested

3

Measurement time points

## About the study

Original title Comparison of the effect of individual and couple emotion focoused therapy on coping with postmenstrual changes in women with premenstrual disorder Authors Neda Javadi, Shirin Kooshki, Fatemeh Golshani et al. Year 2023 Study design Non-randomised trial Participants 53 What was tested Individual emotion-focused therapy OR couple emotion-focused therapy Open access Yes Read the paper [doi.org/10.61838/kman.aftj.4.4.5](https://doi.org/10.61838/kman.aftj.4.4.5)

## Topics

[Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)](https://niyora.com/research/topics/condition-pms/)[Relationships and partners](https://niyora.com/research/topics/life-area-relationships/)

Research tells you what helps on average. Niyora helps on the day it hits.

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