Purpose: This mixed-methods study aimed to investigate the relationship between migration and psychological symptoms for women living in London. Methods: Data from a cross-sectional survey (the South East London Community Health Study) were analysed to investigate whether first generation migrant women were significantly more likely to experience high levels of psychological symptoms (for common mental disorders (CIS-R) or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (4 item PTSD screen)) than women born in the UK. Exploratory analyses investigated what migration specific variables may increase the risk of experiencing high levels of psychological symptoms. Qualitative in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of migrant women and women born in the UK investigated what experiences women perceive impacted on their mental health and well-being, how they have been affected, and how this differs for migrant women and women born in the UK. A thematic analysis was carried out. Results: 391 migrant women and 553 women born in the UK were included in the survey. There was no significant difference in the odds of experiencing high levels of psychological symptoms for migrant women compared with women born in the UK (AOR: 1.0 [95% CI 0.7-1.6]). Stressful life events and long standing physical conditions were associated with an increased risk of experiencing psychological symptoms, and were highly prevalent among migrant women and women born in the UK. Twenty migrant women and ten women born in the UK participated in the qualitative interviews. Processes of marginalisation, disempowerment, and isolation contributed to women’s exposure to stressful life events, and changes in their mental health and well-being. Coping processes were also identified. Conclusions: Services must consider exposure to stressful events, comorbidities, and underlying processes when addressing the mental health needs of women.

This paper reviews the different methods that have been applied to the analysis of written emotional content. The core focus is on the type of data generated by clinical application of the "expressive writing" paradigm (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986) in which participants write on emotional topics for 20 minutes, for three or four days. Twenty-five studies were identified, in which four broad types of analysis were applied: computerised word count analysis, computerised psychiatric content analysis, varieties of thematic coding and self-report essay evaluation rating scales. The different methods of analysis are presented in terms of their theoretical background, analytic features, findings in emotional writing and their limitations. The four methods varied in terms of the degree to which they applied psychological theories of emotion and in terms of their psychometric qualities. The need for methodological triangulation in future research is highlighted, both to deepen understanding of written emotional expression as well as to develop the evidence base on the psychological validity of these methods.

Objectives: The study examined the way mothers’ narratives about her child change during the early years of motherhood and to assess if these changes are meaningfully associated with parent infant relationships and maternal psychopathology. Method: The study followed 76 mother-infant dyads over a 12 month period from two socially disadvantaged community samples: a normative group and a clinically referred group. Maternal representations were measured using the Reflective Functioning (RF) scale and the 10 PDI (Wain, 2010), a dimensional coding system developed for the Parent Development Interview (PDI). The mother-infant relationship was rated using the Emotional Availability Scale. Maternal psychopathology was measured in terms of depressive symptomatology, parental stress and symptoms of distress. All measures were conducted at baseline and at 12 month follow up. Results: Maternal psychopathology at both time points was concurrently associated with more evidence of emotional distress, hostility and helplessness, and less evidence of maternal support in PDI narratives. Over the 12 month study period we observed a decrease in levels of maternal psychopathology and increased maternal emotional availability reflected in concurrent adaptive change in the PDI narratives. Behavioural observations of child involvement with mother at Time 2 were predicted by more enmeshed/role-reversed maternal representations at Time 1. However, child responsiveness in mother-infant interactions at Time 2 was predicted by evidence of supportive maternal representations at Time 1. Conclusions: The results are interpreted in terms of the role of maternal representations in the emerging relationship between mother and infant.

This dissertation explores the lived experience of problematic anger in young men. Qualitative phenomenological research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with a sample of six male participants between the ages of 20-25 years. The accounts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and three main themes were identified. Theme one explores how anger initially stirs within the participants, impacting their sense of agency and their bodily feelings and sensations. Theme two illuminates how anger impacts the participant’s changing self-concept, a loss of awareness and control, and the issue of responsibility for actions taken. Theme three highlights how the participants attempt to regain control of themselves and return to a state of calm and composure. The study seeks to contribute to the paucity of research into the lived-experience of anger in young men. Findings suggest that anger is an intensely dynamic experience that unfolds with an increasing impact on young men’s ability to retain control over their sense of self as experienced in time, space, in their bodies and inter-relationally. The study recommends that continued research be undertaken into anger through the lens of these four areas, often referred to as the ‘existentials’.

This study seeks to explore the experiences of motherhood amongst care-leavers with histories of neglect and/or abuse. Six mothers were interviewed, who had been in care for three years or more and had by the time of the interviews left care for at least eight years. The data collected was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), and four main themes were identified: (1) motherhood as a lifeline and a great challenge; (2) the negotiation of external threats and support; (3) care-leavers’ mothering overshadowed by their past; and (4) being good-enough-mothers: self-imposed pressures. The findings suggest that the transition to motherhood is a personal existential journey involving the search for connections, love and identity; giving the participants an opportunity to create a positive sense of self that lies beyond that of a “child of the system”, and bringing them a sense of purpose and self-worth. However it also propelled them to confront their givens and vulnerabilities, leaving them struggling at times to meet the demands of motherhood. External support and personal determination were key elements in their resilience and success in mothering their children. However, the positive elements of motherhood as the secure base from which to explore new ways of being were not enough to heal the trauma of their past. Participants’ needs to overprotect their children and the tendency to interpret their children’s need for independence as rejection may be fostering the transmission of psychological traits that they sought to avoid. There is a need for easier access to counselling services for these young adults before and after they leave care. Moreover, psychological educational programmes should be established to minimise the negative impact of children-in-care’s early experiences, preparing them not only for motherhood if desired, but also for life as independent, selfassured individuals.

Introduction: Transitions to adulthood typically involve searching for a life partner, settling on an occupation, and discovering ‘who one is’. Some find this transition difficult and experience panic, loss, and uncertainty. The term ‘quarterlife crisis’ has been applied to such experiences. Aim: This thesis aimed to understand the experience of ‘quarterlife crisis’ among young people from two cultural groups: UK and India. The objectives were to identify the triggers for, and forms of, ‘quarterlife crisis’, responses and coping strategies to crisis; and how we may prevent ‘quarterlife crises’ and / or lessen its burden on young people. Methods: Young people aged 22-30 years from India (n=8) and the UK (n=16), who identified with experiencing challenges making their ‘transitions to adulthood’, were recruited. Data generation was highly participant-led, supported through a novel combination of photo-elicitation and time-line interviewing. Data was subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, supported through use of participant generated images. Findings: Four themes were generated explicating the crisis experience - Smooth navigation and self-fulfilment, Perceived standards and unfulfilled expectations, Becoming and knowing oneself and Forced ‘adulthood’/independence. Participants’ expectations about the transition to adulthood were often not met. At the crux of the crisis experience was feeling stagnant, unprepared and overwhelmed, experienced differently based on cultural and educational background. People deployed both personal and social resources in response to their crisis. Getting reassurance about their personal capabilities or skills and developing new perspective of their transitional experiences appeared particularly helpful. Conclusion: Findings appeal for greater sensitivity to social, cultural, economic and political contexts that influence the ‘quarterlife crisis’, and call for rethinking of development theories which propose a linear progression to adulthood. How we can best support young people in their transition should be the responsibilities of policy-makers, educational institutions, families and young people themselves.

Background: Becoming a mother is a period of transition for women and during this period many of them return to work. Aims: The aim of the study was to explore psychological distress when returning to work after maternity leave. Variables such as work-family conflict, work-family balance, social support and income and their relationship to psychological distress during this period were explored. Method: 195 women completed an online questionnaire, with demographic questions as well as measures assessing psychological distress, work-family-conflict, work-family-balance and social support. Correlations, t-tests, mediation and moderation analyses were used to explore the results. Results: Psychological distress was not found to be elevated in mothers returning to work after maternity leave. However, they did have high levels of work-family-conflict and work-family-balance. Social support acted as a mediator of the relationship between work-family-conflict and work-family-balance and psychological distress.

The current thesis aimed to investigate associative memory performance of older and younger adults through various manipulations involving unrelated and integrative word pairs (pairs that can form a sole concept). Research indicates that older adults demonstrate an associative deficit whereby they have difficulty forming new associations between items (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), and this age-related deficit is attenuated when associative memory can be supported by prior knowledge or pre-established associations, such as semantically related word pairs (Badham & Maylor, 2015; Castel, 2005). However, findings from Badham, Estes and Maylor (2012) suggested that word pairs which lack prior associations but can be integrated lead to a reduced associative deficit in the elderly. This thesis first tests the robustness of the integrative advantage as an empirical result; it then attempts to uncover the mechanisms through which the integrative advantage manifests itself. Experiment 1 set out to replicate Badham et al. (2012) and produced similar findings, in that pairs which were integrative but which lacked pre-established associations were better recalled by the elderly than unrelated pairs (an integrative advantage), consequently reducing the associative deficit. Experiments 2, 3a and 3b then examined the roles of item-specific and relational processing and found that encouraging item-specific processing with the integrative pairs reduced their advantage, to the extent that they were not recalled significantly better than the unrelated pairs. Experiment 4 intended to assess whether interactive imagery played a role by seeing if the integrative advantage would be reduced with the encouragements of interactive imagery techniques of the unrelated pairs. Results demonstrated that the advantage was still maintained, which led to the possibility that specificity and perhaps uniqueness were involved. The final experiment investigated the influences of cue overload on integrative and unrelated recall, as well as on recognition. Findings indicated that overloading the integrative cues and hence making the relationship less specific reduced the integrative advantage relative to a condition where the integrative pairs were not overloaded and were unique. In addition, older adults tended to rely more on familiarity than on recollection, in comparison to the younger adults, producing more false alarms to the recombined pairs than their younger counterparts. Taken together, the results from the series of experiments conducted suggest that the role assignment model of relational concepts offers a viable explanation of how the integrative advantage can be explained. The introduction will outline the associative deficit hypothesis (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) as well as the reduced resources hypothesis of cognitive aging (Craik, 2002), before moving on to the empirical chapters. The latter cover more specific literature relating to each of the factors/specific phenomena of interest.

Background: Over the past two decades there has been an upsurge of research documenting the deleterious effects that stereotype threat exerts on females’ mathematical performance. However, there is still some debate regarding the mechanisms that underpin this situational phenomenon. The current thesis argues that one reason that may have precluded finding firm evidence of mediation is the recognition of distinct stereotype threats. Aims: Underpinned by social identity theory, the current thesis examines experimentally whether self-as-target and group-as-target stereotype threat influence females’ mathematical performance. It aims to elucidate further whether deficits in working memory or heightened motivation mediate the stereotype threat-performance relationship. Method: Experiment 1 – Female participants were primed with a negative self-as-target or group-as-target stereotype and completed a modular arithmetic test to provide an initial investigation of the working memory interference account. Experiment 2 – Female participants were primed with a negative self- or group-relevant stereotype and completed an anti-saccade eye-tracking task to pit the working memory interference account against the mere effort motivational account. Experiment 3 – Both the anti-saccade and modular arithmetic tasks were employed to examine whether a positive group stereotype motivated female participants to perform well or led them to ‘choke under pressure’. Experiment 4 & 5 – Female participants completed an updating, shifting and inhibition task under self-as-target, group-as-target or ‘combined’ stereotype threat conditions to examine whether these primes reduce general executive functioning. Experiment 6 – Female participants were tested alone or in groups to explore whether heightened social identity would act as a protective factor to augment their mathematical performance from self-as-target and group-as-target stereotype threat. It also examined whether stereotype threat and the group composition of the testing context influenced a fixed-ability mindset. Results: In line with a working memory interference account, females who were primed with both a self-as-target and group-as-target stereotype underperformed on problems that were presented horizontally relative to vertically. Self-as-target stereotype threat appeared to a have a xiii greater negative effect on overall performance (Experiment 1). However, these primes did not appear to influence performance on visuospatial tasks (Experiments 2 & 3). The salience of a positive group stereotype impeded females’ performance on difficult maths problems consistent with theories on ‘choking under pressure’ (Experiment 3). Females showed reduced updating ability when they were primed concurrently with a self- and group-relevant stereotype prime, with this mediating the stereotype threat-performance relationship. This effect was not observed under conditions in which a task was deemed as solely diagnostic of personal or gender-related ability (Experiments 4 & 5). Finally, females solved more mathematical problems when they completed a maths test in single-sex groups relative to alone, suggesting that heightened in-group representation may serve to reduce stereotype threat effects. However, participants in single-sex groups appeared to endorse a weaker growth mind-set compared to those tested alone. Conclusion: Taken together, findings suggest that females may be more susceptible to stereotype threat when both their personal and social identities are made salient in the stereotyped domain. In such situations, stereotype threat appears to diminish verbal working memory resources to bring about decrements in mathematical performance. Original Contribution: The empirical research presented in this thesis represents the first to examine the mechanisms that underpin the effects of different stereotype threats on females’ mathematical performance.

The number of single individuals in Western societies has increased and continues to rise. Research suggests that single women do not find it easy to be single. This thesis explores the lived experience of being single in female counselling psychology trainees. Seven single women engaged in semi-structured interview, which were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. From the analysis, four main themes emerged. The first was an existential search for relatedness, encompassing the realisation that human relationships are fundamentally necessary; participants experienced being single as a choice that provoked anxiety. The second theme, the paradox of singleness, highlighted ambivalent emotions regarding freedom, but also the absence of a partner. The third theme viewed the training as an all-demanding partner, leaving no space for a romantic relationship, and whose presence at times felt like the loss of one’s soul. The final theme of longing for a romantic relationship addressed participants’ relational longing, feelings of isolation, loneliness, sense of struggle and being different to individuals with a partner. The relational nature of the training brought participants’ singleness into their awareness and this was experienced as difficult. In line with the research examined in the literature review, this study confirms the overall experience of being single as an ambivalent one, which causes individuals to struggle with their singleness. Moreover, this study furthers the previous literature by examining the experience in a rarely studied group. The insights gained from this research have deepened our understanding of the experience of single female counselling psychology trainees and contribute to knowledge within the profession. Specifically, this study suggests that counselling psychology trainees would benefit from training that addresses relational issues and the experience of being single. This would lead to improved clinical practice with single clients and an enhanced awareness of their own process.