The International Family Quality of Life Project, begun in 1997, involves the collaboration of a team of researchers from Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United States whose aim was to conceptualize “family quality of life” and develop a survey tool. The authors describe the basis for the conceptualization and explain the survey development process. An initial version of the survey (the Family Quality of Life Survey—FQoLS‐2000) was used to collect FQoL data across several countries in the early 2000s. The experiences of survey respondents and administrators and subsequent data analysis suggested modifications that resulted in an updated version—the FQoLS‐2006. This new version focuses on 9 areas of family life: health, finances, family relationships, support from other people, support from disability‐related services, influence of values, careers and planning for careers, leisure and recreation, and community interaction. The authors explore each of these areas in relation to 6 underlying concepts: importance, opportunities, initiative, attainment, stability, and satisfaction. Other sections entail obtaining information on the family make‐up, family member, or members, with intellectual disability, and an overall summary of FQoL. The authors note that information from the FQoLS‐2006 should be useful for a wide variety of purposes related to providing supports to individuals and families.

This study investigates the worries of persons regarding their future old age. Worry is looked at in relation to the respondents' sense of coherence in order to evaluate the relationship between a person's ability to cope and to find meaning in life and their image of future old age. The impact of worry over being the victim of elder abuse is compared to other reasons for worry. Results indicate that for the most part, the elderly are not overwhelmed with worries and manage their lives, coping adequately with the problems of day-to-day living. Findings show that middle-aged people indicate the highest worry scores. The findings further show that the post-retirement group has the highest scores on sense of coherence.

From a holistic perspective, psychiatric diseases are caused by the patients unwillingness to assume responsibility for his life, existence, and personal relations. The loss of responsibility arises from the repression of the fundamental existential dimensions of the patients. Repression of love and purpose causes depersonalization (i.e., a lack of responsibility for being yourself and for the contact with others, loss of direction and purpose in life). Repression of strength in mind and emotions leads to derealization (the breakdown of the reality testing, often with mental delusions and hallucinations). The repression of joy and gender leads to devitalization (emotional emptiness, loss of joy, personal energy, sexuality, and pleasure in life).The losses of existential dimensions are invariably connected to traumas with life-denying decisions. Healing the wounds of the soul by holding and processing will lead to the recovery of the person's character, purpose of life, and existential responsibility. It can be very difficult to help a psychotic patient. The physician must first love his patient unconditionally and then fully understand the patient in order to meet and support the patient to initiate the holistic process of healing. It takes motivation and willingness to suffer on behalf of the patients in order to heal, as the existential and emotional pain of the traumas resulting in insanity is often overwhelming. We believe that most psychiatric diseases can be alleviated or cured by the loving and caring physician who masters the holistic toolbox. Further research is needed to document the effect of holistic medicine in psychiatry.

We believe that holistic medicine can be used for patient's with mental health disorders. With holistic psychiatry, it is possible to help the mentally ill patient to heal existentially. As in holistic medicine, the methods are love or intense care, winning the trust of the patient, getting permission to give support and holding, and daring to be fully at the patient's service. Our clinical experiences have led us to believe that mental health patient's can heal if only you can make him or her feel the existential pain at its full depth, understand what the message of the suffering is, and let go of all the negative attitudes and beliefs connected with the disease. Many mentally ill young people would benefit from a few hours of existential holistic processing in order to confront the core existential pains. To help the mentally ill patient, you must understand the level of responsibility and help process the old traumas that made the patient escape responsibility for his or her own life and destiny. To guide the work, we have developed a responsibility scale going from (1) free perception over (2) emotional pain to (3) psychic death (denial of life purpose) further down to (4) escape and (5) denial to (6) destruction of own perception and (7) hallucination further down to (8) coma, suicide, and unconsciousness. This scale seems to be a valuable tool to understand the state of consciousness and the nature of the process of healing that the patient must go through.

The triple and parallel loss of quality of life, health, and ability without an organic reason is what we normally recognize as a life crisis, stress, or a burnout. Not being in control is often a terrible and unexpected experience. Failure on the large existential scale is not a part of our expectations, but most people will experience it. The key to getting well again is to get resources and help, which most people experience with shame and guilt. Stress and burnout might seem to be temporary problems that are easily handled, but often the problems stay. It is very important for the physician to identify this pattern and help the patient to realize the difficulties and seriousness of the situation, thus helping the patient to assume responsibility and prevent existential disaster, suicide, or severe depression. As soon as the patient is an ally in fighting the dark side of life and works with him/herself, the first step has been reached. Existential pain is really a message to us indicating that we are about to grow and heal. In our view, existential problems are gifts that are painful to receive, but wise to accept. Existential problems require skill on the part of the holistic physician or therapist in order to help people return to life—to their self-esteem, self-confidence, and trust in others. In this paper, we describe how we have met the patients soul to soul and guided them through the old pains and losses in order to get back on the track to life.