Dyadic process and dynamics of caregiving and receiving in suicide recovery among Filipino college-aged students and their families

With the increasing incidence of suicidality among the youth, identifying effective care and support that family members provide is essential. Despite numerous studies on the link between suicide mitigation and caregiving, the dyadic process and dynamics of family members supporting youth at risk have been scarcely explored. This study utilizes grounded theory to explore the actions, interactions, and processes involved in caregiving and receiving between five pairs of Filipino family caregivers and college-aged care receivers who recovered from suicidality. The study gave rise to a seven-phase model that characterizes the dynamic dyadic interactions between the family caregiver and the youth care receiver. This is summarized in the acronym C² A² R² E, which means calling-on, contemplating, accepting, allowing, responding, reciprocating, and empowering. This model highlights the processes and dynamics of care within families, which may be useful in paving the way for families and mental health professionals to foster more effective support in mitigating suicidality among youth at risk.

Is it me, is it you or is it both of US? Applying the social relations model to disentangle the components of the therapeutic bond

OBJECTIVE

The study investigated the contribution of therapists and patients to the therapeutic bond and their associations (at the within and between levels) to treatment outcome. On this aim, the social relations model (SRM, aimed to analyze dyadic interpersonal data) was implemented.

METHOD

A novel design for individual psychotherapy studies was adopted, a many-with-many asymmetrical block dyadic design, in which several patients interact with several therapists. Hierarchical linear models were computed to study through variance partitioning the different components of the SRM and their association to treatment outcome.

RESULTS

All SRM components (with significant effects at therapist- and patient- within and between levels) resulted in significant contributions to the bond. However, only components at the within- and between-therapist, and within-patient levels resulted in significant associations with outcome.

CONCLUSION

Given the dyadic nature of the bond, our results support not only studying and offering clinical training on interpersonal therapeutic skills but also on constant monitoring and feedback of the relationship at the more idiosyncratic level.