Counseling Based on Interacting Cognitive Subsystems and its Effect on Anxiety of Infertile Couples

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of cognitive-behavioral counseling, based on interacting cognitive subsystems approach, on anxiety of infertile couples. The research was quasi-experimental. The sample consisted of 30 infertile couples who were placed randomly into experimental and the control groups. They were assessed by the Persian version of Beck Anxiety Inventory (Kavyani, 2005) in three stages namely before counseling sessions, at the end of sessions and two months after that in the follow-up session. Findings indicate that counseling based on interacting cognitive subsystems was effective in decreasing the anxiety of infertile couples in the experimental group at the end of counseling sessions (p<.008) and its effect was considerably higher on women than men (p<.001). The results showed no difference between the two groups in the follow-up stage.