Summary
In the United States, there are more than 5 million individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia. Over 60% of family caregivers are married or partnered. Family-based caregiving presents both objective and subjective challenges, including financial costs, relationship stress, and ambiguous loss. While both individual therapy and family therapy have been used with family caregivers, little research has explored the role of couples therapy in improving caregiver outcomes. This workshop explores contributing factors to adult child caregiver burden and applies contextual therapy to treat these problems in the context of couples therapy. Presenters will use a clinical vignette to illustrate the application of fairness, balance, loyalty conflicts, and constructive/destructive entitlement to caregiving. Presenters will analyze common couple dynamics from a systems theory perspective and offer clinical suggestions for promoting self-care and relationship health in couples when one or both partners are acting as adult child caregivers.

Objectives

• Attendees will be introduced to a four-fold framework of assessment and will be able to identify the most important factors to assess in therapy with AD caregivers.
• Attendees will be able to conceptualize how destructive entitlement and loyalty contribute to individual and relational problems for AD caregivers.
• Attendees will observe use of multidirected partiality and exoneration as clinical interventions/aims that can foster wellness and improve problematic relational dynamics in families affected by AD.

Subject Codes: caregiving, chronic illness, relationship quality
Population Codes: couples/coupled, cognitive (dis)ability, multi-parent or caregivers family (more than two)
Method and Approach Codes: contextual, clinical/therapeutic orientation, family therapy

Summary
The course of depression is chronic for about half of those diagnosed, yet it remains unclear how the course of depression differs among couples by partner and severity. Using data from 1,215 couples across four years, we sought to examine couple classes of depression trajectories and test the degree to which relationship satisfaction predicted class membership. Using joint-probability growth mixture modeling, we found three different classes: women's-moderate men's-low class, men's-moderate women's-low class, and men's and women's low-class. Higher relationship satisfaction among women was associated with women's-moderate, men's-low class membership and men's higher relationship satisfaction was associated with men's-moderate, women's-low class membership, in comparison to the men's-women's-low-stable class. These findings indicate that the course of depressed mood in couples varies by each partner's severity, but generally remains stable over four years. However, partners with low depressed mood were just as satisfied with their relationship as partners in the low stable class.

Objectives

• To evaluate the course of depressed mood in classes of German couples by partner and severity across four years.
• To analyze the course of depressed mood in classes of German couples across four years.
• To demonstrate that the course of depressed mood varies by partner and severity, but remains relatively stable in a general population of German couples.

Subject Codes: depression, relationship quality, interpersonal relationships
Population Codes: international (non-U.S.), couples/coupled, cognitive (dis)ability
Method and Approach Codes: growth curve modeling (GCM), group based trajectory analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM)

Summary
Remarriages account for about one third of all marriages in the U.S., however the research on remarried couple outcomes is limited, particularly with regard to finances. The family economic stress model theorizes that economic hardship promotes economic strain, which in turn promotes emotional distress and conflict patterns that have negative impacts on relationship satisfaction and relationship stability. This study used actor-partner interdependence path analysis of dyadic data from 158 remarried couples to examine the direct and indirect effects of each spouse’s perception of economic strain on their own marital satisfaction and stability, as well as on their spouse’s marital satisfaction and stability, with financial conflict as an intermediary variable. Results indicated that financial conflict strongly influences the relationship between economic strain and the marital outcomes; none of the direct paths between economic strain and the marital outcomes were significant when accounting for financial conflict as a mechanism.

Objectives

• To analyze the influence of financial conflict on the association between economic strain and remarital satisfaction through both indirect actor effects and indirect partner effects.
• To analyze the influence of financial conflict on the association between economic strain and remarital stability through both indirect actor effects and indirect partner effects.
• To apply study findings to clinical intervention for couple therapy with remarried couples experiencing economic strain.

Subject Codes: relationship quality, relationship dissolution, economics
Population Codes: couples/coupled, remarried family, income inclusive
Method and Approach Codes: actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), dyadic analysis, secondary data analysis

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of positive and negative dyadic coing behaviors on marital satisfaction as mediated by psychological flexibility and moderated by gender and having or not having experienced a critical incident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants included 322 (205 female, 117 male) married adults. We analyzed two mediation models through PROCESS Model 76 (Version 3.4). Results revealed that while there were significant indirect effects both for women and men who experienced a critical incident during the pandemic when using a positive dyadic coping behavioron marital satisfaction via psychological flexibility [β= .017, 95% CI (.002, .034); β= .016, 95% CI (.000, .041), there were significant indirect effects only for women who experienced a critical incident when using negative dyadic coping behavioron marital satisfactionvia psychological flexibility [β= -.053, 95% CI (.117, .008)].

Objectives

• To investigate the effects of positive and negative dyadic coping behaviors on marital satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• To investigate the mediator role of psychological flexibility and moderator roles of gender and having or not having experienced a critical incident in explaining the relationship between dyadic coping and marital satisfaction.
• To demonstrate how dyading coping skills and psychological flexibility predict marital satisfaction during COVID-19 pandemic.

Subject Codes: COVID-19, coping, gender
Population Codes: middle adulthood, heterosexual, Islam, Moslem, Muslim
Method and Approach Codes: mediation/indirect effects models, quantitative methodology,