en Educational Studies پژوهشي Original <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color:#339966;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height:2;"><b>Objective:</b> The objective of the present investigation was to assess the efficacy of reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy in mitigating cognitive avoidance among women experiencing marital distress.<br> <b>Methods</b>: This research was conducted as a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design incorporating a control cohort and an interval for follow-up assessments. The studied population comprised all married women encountering marital distress who sought assistance at counseling clinics located in the second district of Tehran during the summer of 2023. A sample of 45 participants was selected through convenience sampling and being randomly allocated into three distinct groups: Experiment 1 involving Reality Therapy (n=15), Experiment 2 encompassing Emotion-Focused Therapy (n=15), and a control group (n=15). For the acquisition of research data, the study utilized the cognitive avoidance questionnaire developed by Sexton and Dugas (2009) and marital distress questionnaire formulated by Weissman, Snyder, and Bach (2009).<br> <b>Results</b>: The findings indicated that the average cognitive avoidance scores for the groups receiving reality therapy and emotion-focused therapy were significantly reduced compared to those recorded in the control group (p<0.05). Furthermore, the average cognitive avoidance score within the emotion-focused therapy group was significantly lower than that of the reality therapy group (p<0.05).<br> <b>Conclusions</b>: The results substantiate the efficacy of psychological interventions in diminishing cognitive avoidance and indicate that emotion-focused therapy may serve as a more efficacious intervention.</span></span></span></span></div> Marital distress, Reality therapy, Emotion-focused therapy, Cognitive avoidance, Women 0 0 http://ijer.hormozgan.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-394-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Maryam Toope m.toope@iau.ac.ir 0000-0002-0000-0000 No Department of Psychology and Counselling, Tonekabon Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran Seyed Mahmood Mirzamani Bafghi mirzamani@bmsu.ac.ir 0000-0002-0000-0000 Yes Department of Psychology, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran Mohammad Hatami Hatami@khu.ac.ir 0000-0002-0000-0000 No Department of Clinical Psychology, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran