● The calculated values showed a significant difference between the control and experimental groups in the mean scores of secure and anxious-ambivalent attachment styles and self-esteem.
● Self-differentiation educational intervention has increased secure attachment and improved anxious-ambivalent attachment in married women.
● Self-differentiation educational intervention has increased the self-esteem of married women.
Plain Language Summary
The family, as an essential element of society, plays a key role in the formation of different social relationships. Attachment styles are one of the concepts that are formed from early childhood and become a pattern of interpersonal relationships in adulthood so that they can predict their adjustment. Self-esteem is an individual trait that has significant effects on the context of family relationships, social interactions, and the degree of differentiation of individuals in marital relationships. Differentiation means the independent identity of the individual in the relationship and is essential for psychological adjustment. Because people in the stage of choosing a spouse tend toward a person with a similar level of differentiation, marital satisfaction is related to the levels of differentiation of couples. The present study was done to determine the effect of self-differentiation training on attachment styles and self-esteem among married women. To this aim, 30 married women who wanted to participate in the training course were selected and placed in two experimental and control (each 15 participants). The experimental group participated in a self-differentiation training course for 8 sessions, but no training was provided for the control group. The results showed that self-d