This study aims to develop the group counselling program based on Satir's family therapy theory and verify the effect when it is applied to college couples. This program was created based on primary triad experience and relations with dating couples. ...
This study aims to develop the group counselling program based on Satir's family therapy theory and verify the effect when it is applied to college couples. This program was created based on primary triad experience and relations with dating couples. The subjects were 8 couples, half of them were the test group and the other half were the control group. The test group participated in an 8-session program for 4 weeks, each of which was 180 minutes long, and no measure was applied to the control group.
Relational growth is divided into the subcategories such as self-esteem, dysfunctional communication, dating relationship satisfaction, conflict coping behavior, and congruency, and the effect of this program on these subcategories is verified through quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Also, a qualitative analysis of other common experiences and the changes of their meaning, which were not included in the subcategories of relational growth, was conducted. And the primary results were as follows.
First, the self-esteem of all the couples was significantly improved in the quantitative analysis, and 7 subjects changed in the qualitative analysis. Secondly, the total dysfunctional communication of all the couples was improved in the quantitative analysis, and 7 subjects were significantly improved in its subcategory factors such as blaming communication, superreasonable communication and incongruent communication, and 6 subjects in its subcategory factor such as irrelevant communication were improved functionally. This revealed significant improvement towards functional communication. Qualitative results indicated all the subjects realized the problem of their dysfunctional communication and the needs of functional communication, and all except one were capable of performing functional communication. Third, dating relationship satisfaction of 7 subjects was improved in the quantitative analysis, and all the subjects were satisfied in the qualitative analysis. Fourth, conflict coping behavior had 4 positive results in the quantitative analysis, but there wasn't significant difference. In the qualitative analysis, all of them realized negative conflict coping behavior and needed positive conflict coping behavior, and all the subjects except 2 reported positive conflict coping behavior. Fifth, in the aspect of congruency, general congruency was improved in 5, intra-personal congruency in 4, interpersonal congruency in 3, but there was no significant difference in the quantitative analysis. On the other hand, all of them showed change of congruency in the qualitative analysis. Sixth, with the analysis of each couple, according to relational growth subcategories, 2 females from A and B couples and 2 males from C and D couples showed big positive change. Seventh, according to the qualitative analysis of other common experience and change of their meaning which were not included in the subcategories of relational growth, 4 categories such as 'confusion before change,' 'realization of influence that primary triad experience gave to dating couples,' 'understanding partner's new aspects,' and 'the influence of partner's change to him or her' were added.
Conclusively, the group counselling program developed in this study based on Satir's family therapy theory improved significantly the relational growth of college couples. And, 4 new categories were extracted from other common experience of change. Therefore, this study will be a solid base of studying the education and counselling program of general family life, and is expected to contribute to make family life and society healthy.