Yael Bar-Shachar

Clinical or Methodological Significance of this Article: The results show that there was an increase in the diversity of the therapists’ interventions, both within sessions and throughout the cours...

Shared reality, the experience of a perceived commonality of inner states, is hypothesized to play a central role in romantic relationships. Shared reality can be established within intimate relationships through engagement in shared practices. One common practice among romantic couples is watching TV together; however, how this activity relates to partners' shared reality has not been documented. The current study examined the effects of shared TV watching on daily shared reality construction among intimate partners, using dyadic daily diaries ( N _days = 21, N _couples = 84). We found that daily shared TV watching was associated with a greater experience of shared reality. This association was stronger when couples communicated with each other after (but not during) watching. In contrast, shared reality was not associated with the extent to which the watching experience was reported as emotionally intensive.

Background: Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) was recently approved as a formal diagnosis in the DSM‐5‐TR. The implementation of bereavement interventions is frequently requested, but their effectiveness has been controversial. Narrative reconstruction (NR) is a time‐limited integrative therapy, originally developed for the treatment of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adapted for the treatment of PGD. NR consists of exposure to the loss memory, a detailed written reconstruction of the loss memory narrative, and an elaboration of the personal significance of that memory for the bereaved.Objectives: In this study we evaluated the efficacy of NR for PGD.Method: In this study, 33 participants with PGD were quasi‐randomized—that is, assigned to an immediate (n = 20) or delayed (n = 13) 16‐session NR intervention. PGD, intrusion, avoidance and depression symptoms, as well as levels of the loss memory integration, were assessed at pretreatment, post‐treatment, and at a 3‐month follow‐up.Results: Mixed linear models showed significant intervention effects for PGD and intrusive symptomatology. Results also showed an increase in integration of the loss memory, and improvements remained stable for all outcomes at follow‐up.Conclusion: In this study we established NR as an effective intervention for PGD and call for further validation in future studies. Integrating this intervention into the routine care of people with PGD seems important and beneficial.

Study Objectives: This study assessed and compared mothers’ and fathers’ sleep trajectories from pregnancy and throughout the first year of the infant’s life. We also examined associations between maternal, paternal, and infant sleep. Methods: Two hundred and thirty-two couples were recruited for the study during pregnancy. Data were collected during pregnancy and at 4, 8, and 12 months postpartum. Maternal, paternal, and infant sleep were monitored at home for seven nights, using actigraphy, sleep diaries, and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Results: Mothers showed more impaired sleep quality than fathers, at all assessments, whereas fathers had shorter sleep duration. Based on the ISI, about 70% of mothers and 50% of fathers showed at least subclinical insomnia at the different assessments. Trajectory analyses (controlling for feeding method and sleeping arrangements) demonstrated a significant deterioration in diary-based and actigraphy sleep quality for both parents, from pregnancy to 4 months. Both parents and infants had an increase in sleep quality from 4 to 12 months, though some parental sleep variables showed a quadratic pattern with a decrease in sleep quality at 8 months. Statistically significant triadic associations at the different assessments were found between mothers’, fathers’, and infants’ sleep. Maternal and infant sleep measures were more strongly correlated than paternal and infant sleep. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of considering the family context of sleep, by demonstrating similarities and differences in the changes that sleep undergoes in new mothers and fathers and by showing how sleep is interrelated between all family members.

Narrative reconstruction is a time-limited integrative therapy, originally developed in the context of post-traumatic stress disorder and adjusted for the treatment of prolonged grief disorder (PGD). It consists of exposure to the loss memory and narrating a detailed written reconstruction of it. In this paper, we describe narrative reconstruction interventions and modifications for the treatment of PGD as well as the underlying mechanisms of change including integration of the loss episode into the life narrative. A case demonstration of narrative reconstruction with a patient with PGD presented for illustration and the integrative nature of narrative reconstruction for PGD is discussed.

Spatial proximity may be an artifact of relationships research methodology; however, little work has explored how this feature of research designs influences perceptions of one’s relationship, particularly shared reality (i.e., experiencing a commonality of inner states). The present research tested whether spatial proximity would independently contribute to shared reality in couples’ daily lives. In 2 daily diary studies, each across 3–4 weeks (N₁ = 76 couples, 3694 observations; N₂ = 84 couples, 3073 observations), participants indicated whether or not their partner was spatially proximal, and also completed measures of shared reality and relationship satisfaction. Spatial proximity to one’s partner resulted in higher shared reality on the day of the survey completion and predicted increases in shared reality from the previous day, but this effect did not spillover into the following day. These findings held controlling for conflict, shared daily experiences (e.g., cooking together), and shared survey experiences (i.e., whether they completed the survey at the same time). In addition, this effect was unique to shared reality, whereby spatial proximity did not predict relationship satisfaction. However, shared reality was associated with increases in relationship satisfaction across the daily diary period. Thus, researchers should consider spatial proximity when developing their research design as it may influence shared reality, which has implications for relationship well-being.

Objective: The main goal of this study was to examine the interplay between individuals' attachment insecurity and their perceptions of their partners' COVID‐related behaviors (supportive and negative behaviors) in predicting their relationship satisfaction.Background: Stress is a well‐documented risk factor for relationship satisfaction. COVID‐19 related stressors thus pose a challenge to maintaining relationship satisfaction. Although partners' supportive behaviors can play a central role in mitigating these stressors, enduring individual vulnerabilities, such as attachment insecurity, are likely to moderate the effectiveness of supportive (or negative) behaviors.Method: In this two‐wave study, conducted at the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Israel, 239 participants in cohabiting Israeli couples reported their current relationship satisfaction and perceived partners' supportive and negative behaviors in response to COVID‐related stress. Participants' pre‐COVID reports of relationship satisfaction and attachment orientations were used to assess the extent to which partners' supportive/negative behaviors interacted with attachment orientations to predict relationship satisfaction maintenance during the first lockdown in Israel.Results: Higher levels of support and lower levels of negative behaviors were associated with greater relationship satisfaction maintenance. Anxiously attached individuals showed greater sensitivity to their partners' support, whereas avoidantly attached individuals manifested lower reactivity to their partners' negative behaviors.Conclusions: Perceived partners' supportive and negative behaviors can predict relationship satisfaction during stressful times. However, high attachment anxiety and low attachment avoidance may render individuals more sensitive to such behaviors.Implications: The results suggest that during times of stress, it is essential to target partners with attachment insecurity to strengthen their supportive skills.

Study Objectives: This study explored the links between mothers’ objective and subjective sleep and their caregiving feelings toward their infant (i.e. patience for the infant, desire to be with the infant, and anger toward the infant), using a diary study design. We were particularly interested in examining whether nights of lower sleep quality within individual mothers predict more negative maternal caregiving feelings the following day.Methods: The sample included 151 women, who were recruited during pregnancy. Data were collected at 4 and 8 months after delivery. Maternal sleep was monitored at home for seven nights using actigraphy and sleep diaries. Mothers rated their caregiving feelings each evening.Results: Multilevel modeling (controlling for depressive symptoms, feeding method, and background variables) revealed that actigraphic and subjective sleep variables were associated with maternal caregiving feeling, both at the between- and within-person levels. For example, lower sleep percent predicted reduced levels of maternal patience for the infant at 4 and 8 months (between-person effect). Moreover, when a mother had a lower sleep percent on a given night (compared to her average), she reported lower levels of patience for her infant the following day (within-person prospective effect).Conclusions: The findings demonstrate, for the first time, that maternal nightly variations in objective and subjective sleep quality predict daily changes in maternal feelings toward her infant at two different assessment points. Improving maternal sleep quality might be an important target for future interventions which may help mothers to feel more positively toward their infants.

Shared reality (SR) is the experience of having an inner state believed to be shared by others. Dyadic responsiveness has been suggested to be a critical process in SR construction. The present study tested the extent to which SR varies in the daily lives of romantic partners and whether this variability is related to responsiveness processes. We predicted that disclosure of personal events to one’s partner as well as perceived partner enacted responsiveness would be associated with daily levels of SR. We further predicted that these associations would be more pronounced when one has low epistemic certainty with respect to the disclosed event. To test these hypotheses, daily diaries were collected from 76 cohabiting romantic couples for a period of 4 weeks. Participants reported the occurrence of daily personal positive and negative events, indicated whether they had disclosed these events to their partner, and described how their partner had responded. As predicted, the disclosure of positive and negative events, as well as the perceptions of partners’ constructive responses to these disclosures, were positively associated with daily SR. A significant interaction was found between epistemic uncertainty (i.e., low perceived social consensus) and responsiveness processes in the context of negative (but not positive) events; specifically, when participants experienced low certainty, the disclosure of the event and the perceived partner’s constructive response were more strongly associated with SR.