An investigation of the effects of the psychoeducational programme structured on positive psychology based on masnavi stories on marital harmony

Married life, in which a person becomes attached to the opposite sex at the utmost level and which consists an intense emotional bond between the two, is the basis of social life for a human who tries to make sense of life because of his own nature. Married life effects many things such as working life, getting satisfaction from life, mental health of individuals, psychological health of families and communities. In order to maintain a healthy and stable marital life, the bond between the spouses needs to be strengthened and the harmony between them must be maintained. The main purposes of this study are to examine the effects of the psychoeducation programme structured on Masnavi stories based on positive psychology, which were prepared by the researcher, on marital harmony to improve this through a psychoeducational programme and to increase their satisfaction with life. The research is an experimental study based on "pre-test, post-test and follow-up test model with control group". Examined group of the research consists of 14 married couples who live in Istanbul and who agreed to participate voluntarily. Of the 14 married couples, seven pairs were assigned randomly to the experimental group and seven pairs to the control group. In order to reveal the effectiveness of the psychoeducational programme, "Spousal Harmony Scale" and "Personal Information Form", prepared by the researcher were taken by the couples before the first session. Couples in the control group were visited and they were given the scale and the form. While couples in the experimental group took 11 weeks of psychoeducational programme structured on Masnavi stories based on positive psychology, no such procedure was applied to the control group. The effectiveness of the programme was tested by applying the same measurement tools to the couples in the experimental and control groups before, during and after the experiment. The data were analysed by Wilcoxon rank sum test. According to the results of the research, the psychoeducational programme structured on Masnavi stories based on positive psychology was found to be effective in increasing the level of harmony (marital harmony, marital satisfaction, showing love and marital commitment) between the married couples. In addition to these results, it is seen that Masnavi of Mevlana, which has themes of positive psychology and metaphors, has a psychotherapeutic aspect. The results obtained were discussed with the relevant literature and theoretical and practical suggestions were made for different fields of application.