Lived experience of Iranian married men and women in interacting with each other in marital relationship: a qualitative research based on functional analytic psychotherapy approach (FAP)

The present research is designed with the aim of deep and comprehensive identification of textual and cultural factors related to couples’ interaction, explanation of its meaning and concept, and the model of factors related to the quality of couples’ interaction and functional analytical psychotherapy approach (FAP). The research community was all married men and women in Tehran who had been married for at least two years. Although men s and women s relationship has been analyzed in the research, the unit of analysis is individual: married men and women. By purposive sampling technique, 30 married couples were selected in Tehran. Semi-structured interviews with related participants continued until theoretical data saturation was achieved. Each interview text was placed in ATLAS Ti software for coding system, semantic production, and analyzable codes, and then the software performed analysis. According to the aforementioned model, results were categorized based on seven themes including identifying and expressing needs, experiencing and expressing excitement, conflict and incompatibility, mutual relationship, disclosure and close relationship with spouse, verbal and nonverbal relationship, and attitudes.