ABSTRACT

This study sought to explore the effect of pastoral counselling and rational emotive behavioural therapy on marital conflicts in Umuahia North, Abia State. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design employing the pre-test-post-test, non-randomized control group design with a 4x2 factorial matrix. The sample of the study consisted of 72 (36 males and 36 female) participants drawn through purposive sampling techniques from the population figure of250,000 couples experiencing marital conflicts from four Christian denominations: Roman Catholic, Anglican, Assemblies of God and Winners Church in Umuahia North, Abia State. These comprised 18 subjects each for Pastoral Counselling (PC), Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), combination of Pastoral Counselling (PC) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and control groups respectively. The instrument used for data collection was a 22-item questionnaire titled Marital Conflict Identification Questionnaire. The instrument was validated by three experts from Guidance and Counselling, Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation, from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient was usedto ascertain the stability of the Marital Conflict Identification Questionnaire (MCIQ) and reliability index of 0.78 was obtained for the MCIQ. Test of reliability for the internal consistency of the instrument was measured using Cronbach Alpha and the result indicate index values of 0.86 for the MCIQ. Data were collected in the three phases of pre-treatment post, treatment and follow-up periods. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to test the null hypotheses at 0.051evel ofsignificance. The result showed that: Intervention using either pastoral counselling or rational emotive behaviour therapy significantly reduced the rate of marital conflicts of couples with marital conflicts at posttest; exposing the subjects with marital conflicts to combined treatment using PC and REBT significantly reduced their marital conflicts more than either the use of only PC or REBT. The male and female couples experiencing marital conflicts exposed to the two treatment packages did not differ significantly in the reduction of their marital conflicts; The treatment gains of the subjects experiencing marital conflicts and were exposed to either PC or REBT were maintained after four weeks follow-up period. Conclusion was that reduction of marital conflicts of couples experiencing marital conflicts depended on exposure to pastoral counselling and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. It was thus, recommended that teachers and school counsellors who have some students in their classes and schools from families experiencing marital conflicts could effectively use pastoral counselling and rational emotive behaviour therapy in reducing the marital conflicts ofthe patents ol such students since such maiital conflicts could have negative effects on the academic adjustment ofsuch students in school.