Importance Weighting in the Domain-of-Life Approach to Subjective Well-Being: the Consideration of Age

The domain-of-life approach to subjective well-being (SWB) has been popular for decades. Recognizing the possibility that individuals may not perceive all life domains equally important, many researchers advocate for importance weighting, which is to incorporate the relative importance of life domains (i.e., domain importance) into the scoring of SWB at the individual level. However, the need for and the adequacy of importance weighting remain topics of debate. What has been missing in the debate is the consideration of influences of potential confounding factors. Given that age is significantly associated with domain satisfaction, domain importance, and SWB, assessing importance weighting should not ignore the potential confounding effect of age. Analyzing data from an online survey, we found that adjusting for the confounding effect of age produced negligible changes in the results of assessing the role that domain importance played in the relationship between domain satisfaction and SWB. Our findings support the observations from the literature that the results of assessing importance weighting depended on the SWB variable selected. However, given our non-probability study sample, future studies should continue to consider age as a confounder in assessing importance weighting in the domain-of-life approach to SWB.

     

What Does it Mean to be a Common Factors Informed Family Therapist?

The common factors paradigm in couple and family therapy has gained popularity over the past several decades, leading many therapists to refer to themselves as common factors family therapists. Despite this, no consensus exists on what it means to be a common factors family therapist, or if such a designation even makes sense given that the common factors paradigm is not a model. Synthesizing the existing common factors literature, a case is made for the designation “common factors informed family therapist,” and the following six core principles are outlined that characterize this designation: (1) sees overlap among theories; (2) passionate about theory, not a theory; (3) client centered; (4) monitors hope and the therapeutic alliance; (5) views clients as people rather than objects; and (6) prioritizes healing over therapy. Each of the concepts is discussed in depth, and clinical implications are provided.     

Coping Card Usage can Further Reduce Suicide Reattempt in Suicide Attempter Case Management Within 3‐Month Intervention

This randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of using crisis coping cards (n = 32) in the case management of suicide prevention compared with case management without the use of coping cards (n = 32) over a 3‐month intervention period. The generalized estimating equation was used to examine the interaction effect between treatments and time on suicide risk, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. Results indicated that subsequent suicidal behaviors, severity of suicide risk, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness were reduced more in the coping card intervention group compared to the case management only group. Moreover, for the survival curves of time to suicide reattempt, the coping card group showed a significantly longer time to reattempt than the case management only group at 2‐month and 3‐month intervention periods.