Online Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy to Enhance Self-Esteem in Romantic Relationship for Emerging Adult Women

Abstract

Emerging adulthood is often linked with the development task to explore an intimate relationship with people around them, including establishing romantic relationships. However, individuals sometimes are hesitant to start a romantic relationship because of various reasons, and one of them is low self-esteem. Therefore, this study aims to develop an online group therapy with a cognitive-behavioral approach for emerging adult women with low self-esteem. Participants of this research are 14 women ranging from 20-25 years old who have difficulties in starting a romantic relationship caused by low self-esteem. This study used Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale to measure the level of self-esteem in the participants. The results showed a significant difference between mean scores before and after the online group therapy (p= 0.009; Cohen's d = 1.43), which means that online group therapy with CBT approach can improve the emerging adult women's self-esteem who have difficulties starting a romantic relationship.