This qualitative study was undertaken for the purpose of answering the following two research questions: (a) What is the personal meaning and experience of mothering for women who feel they are actively resisting the Western dominant discourse on mothering?, and (b) How are these personal meanings and experiences grounded in the participants' personal contexts as well as in dominant and alternative discourses and discursive practices? Fifteen women ranging in age from 23 to 46 years, who self identified as actively resisting the dominant discourse, were interviewed about their mothering experiences. Their interviews were transcribed and analyzed following a critical interpretive approach (Cushman, 1995; Packer & Addison, 1989). In answering the first research question three themes were identified: (a) resisting is rewarding and liberating, (b) resisting entails juggling and balancing, (c) resisting entails cognitive work, refraining, and reconciling. Although acknowledging the pragmatic and cognitive challenges inherent in so doing, the women in the study experienced a sense of empowerment and pride in their choice to resist. In answering the second question, participants' identified concrete structural barriers to their efforts to mother differently and acknowledged the importance of supportive partners, friends, extended family members, education, financial resources, and flexible employment as critical in their efforts to resist having their own needs completely subjugated to those of their children. Participants drew on the discourses of feminism, achievement, individualism, collectivity, self-care, science, attachment, and alternative medicine in supporting their efforts to resist. They positioned themselves as caring responsible mothers, independent women, educated/professionals, critical thinkers, and activists. The findings suggest that in positioning themselves in opposition to the dominant, 'selfless mother' discourse, the participants were faced with negotiating between multiple and often contradictory discourses. In particular, the women in the study struggled to negotiate between the selfless mother and the individual rights/self actualization discourses. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the perception of resistance may be as important in engendering a sense of agency for women who mother, as the actual manifestation of resistance in their mothering practices. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for research, theory, and clinical practice.

An exploratory case study using multiple cases investigated the question "What is the meaning of stealing in eating disordered women?" Seven women diagnosed with bulimia nervosa participated in in-depth interviews about this experience. The findings of these interviews revealed commonalities and variations in the patterns and dynamics of both stealing and bulimia. Important information emerged about this experience regarding restrictive family patterns, participants' reactions to these restrictions through stealing and the parallel restrictions and reactions of the bulimic behaviours they later imposed upon themselves. These results add new and in-depth information to the few existing quantitative studies and clinical knowledge addressing stealing in bulimic women. Recommendations for future research and implications for clinical practice were presented.

This dissertation explored factors related to heterosexual women's use of the label "PMS" and the question of why so many women who say that they have PMS do not meet prospectively-based researcher criteria. Participants were recruited through Vancouver city newspapers and posters for a study of emotional, behavioural, and health patterns. They were screened for hysterectomies, ovariectomies, pregnancy, and chronic illnesses. The 58 women in this study (mean age=34.5) provided daily prospective data over a mean of 15 weeks for 15 variables representing 4 different types of symptoms: mood, relationship, concentration and work performance, and physical and activity symptom types. At the beginning of the study, they completed the Beck Depression Inventory. During a final interview they completed various questionnaires regarding romantic relationships, stress, history of abuse, and attitudes toward menstruation. During her final interview, each woman was asked whether she had ever had PMS and, if so, what she believed caused it. Only 16% of the women met researcher-designated criteria for PMS and 9% met researcher-criteria for PDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, APA, 1994), but 60% believed that they currently had PMS. There was very little match between researcher-designations and self-designations for any of the 15 prospective variables. Instead, consistent with schematic theories of PMS, it was women's attitudes toward menstruation that were most strongly related to self-designation. Women who said that they currently had PMS were more likely to view menstruation as debilitating, natural, and predictable. They had higher depression scores and reported more frequent and enduring experiences of anger. More of these women reported having been emotionally abused as an adult, emotionally abused as a child, and physically abused by a past or current romantic partner. Although women who said that they had never had PMS perceived menstruation as more bothersome, they believed that women should be able to ignore it. Current-Say and Never-Say women did not significantly differ for other forms of abuse, partner satisfaction, or daily uplifts. Daily hassles did not reach statistical significance at the multivariate level, but univariate significance indicated that Never-Say women might experience fewer daily hassles than Current-Say women. The prospective data were analyzed idiographically using prediction analyses. Current-Say women demonstrated more uncharacteristic cyclicity during the midcycle phase across the 15 variables and 4 symptom types. Never-Say women showed more uncharacteristic cyclicity during the postmenstrual phase. No differences were found for other phases. These findings, and other results, argue against the use of simple premenstrual-postmenstrual and premenstrual-intermenstrual difference measures in diagnosing PMS or PDD. It was concluded that, although the women's self-designations did not match their prospective data, they could not be explained simply as a mislabelling of negative cyclicity in other phases. There was also mixed evidence for the hypothesis that women's reports of having "PMS" were part of a generalized over-reporting of symptomatology or dissatisfaction. Possible explanations for women's self-designations are discussed, including schematic representations of both menstruation and general illness and a "contrast hypothesis" modified from the version proposed by McFarlane and Williams (1994). This contrast hypothesis suggests that cyclical changes occurring during a particular non-premenstrual phase are related to women's self-designations according to (a) the timing of these changes relative to the visible and salient menses, in conjunction with (b) their attitudes toward menstruation. Close to half (45%) the women who said that they had experienced PMS attributed their perceived PMS to a bidirectional model of physiology and environment, and 58% of the women saying that they had PMS believed that it happened occasionally rather than inevitably. Overall, the women's representations of menstrual cyclicity were neither simple reflections of cultural stereotypes nor pervasively negative, but rather diverse and complex. The results that link depression, anger, and specific forms of abuse to self-designations suggest that women saying that they have PMS are indicating difficulties that may or may not be menstrually-related. Researchers and other professionals need to assess the nature of those difficulties in women presenting with "PMS".

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This research sought to explore the meaningfulness of belonging to a choir. Members of 14 Canadian choirs (N=404) responded to 18 statements concerning the perceived benefits of choral singing. Choristers ranked six aspects of choral singing in the following order of importance (from greatest to least): musical, intellectual, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. An in-depth analysis of three central areas of the choral experience (social, intellectual, and emotional) was done and six sample populations were compared: paid vs. volunteer choristers, choristers living in different areas (urban, suburban, and rural), choristers with a music degree vs. non-degree, age of choristers (young adult, middle-aged, and senior), choir size (large, medium, and small), and type of choir (community and church). / Results showed that choristers in small choirs felt like valued members of their choirs, felt a positive connection with the other choristers, and that singing in choir raised their mood to a significantly higher degree than choristers in medium and large choirs. Significant findings showed that volunteer singers, to a greater extent than paid singers, found that choir raised their mood, helped them to relax, and was a satisfying experience which gave them a sense of accomplishment. The differences in responses between middle-aged and senior choristers were minimal, but both gave responses that were significantly higher when compared with young adult choristers. The older singers felt that singing in choir raised their mood, helped them to relax, provided them with a sense of accomplishment, and that there was a sense of unity within their choir more so than young adults.

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