This thesis examines the practice of interviewing, firstly in 'qualitative' sociological research, and secondly in various formats of contemporary British television. In both contexts, interviewing has been used to generate experiential accounts, not only for public scrutiny and analysis, but also to provide certain kinds of cultural fascination and pleasure. However, despite a substantial methodological literature, little critical attention has been given to the kinds of accounts formulated in interviews, and to the interview itself as a particular context for public speaking. This thesis contains an analysis of the forms of discourse produced when interviewees are invited to- 'speak from experience'; and it is argued that in the process of formulating their experiences specific identities, or forms of subjectivity, are constructed. Interviewing is a pervasive cultural practice, but it is also located in particular institutional contexts. Accordingly, interview discourse can be related. to successive realisations of the notion of a 'public sphere' for the publication and circulation of statements. The qualitative sociological interview begins to develop in mid-nineteenth century practices of social investigation; but it is suggested that these social criteria are displaced, and speaking from experience is transformed, in the mass mediated public sphere of the post-war period.

The three sections of the present portfolio, 'Academic Dossier', 'Therapeutic practice Dossier' and 'Research Dossier', contain work produced during my training and are the highest achievement of my academic and professional endeavours within the psychological field. The first section is comprised of three essays. They assume an applied slant including clinical examples to illustrate theoretical considerations using the topics of metaphors, dreams, and 'religious and spiritual problems'. All three matters are considered with a novel angle of investigation illustrated by clinical examples. The second section contains summaries of therapeutic practice experienced in a counselling university service, a prison counselling service, and a charity therapeutic service. The final clinical paper at the end of the section reveals, by means of a 'sacred' metaphor, my personal journey towards my continually developing identity as a counselling psychologist. In the final section a literature review and two empirical studies on the use of Sacred Texts in counselling and psychotherapy offer a preliminary, yet promising presentation of this under-researched type of religious/spiritual intervention. The final findings of the two independent yet deeply connected studies generated two comparable preliminary models of the use of Sacred Texts in therapy. These models emerged from data collected from therapists and real former clients who had firsthand experience of this intervention. Each work points to important implications for practice and to further avenues for research studies. In conclusion, the use of Sacred Texts in therapy has indeed emerged as a rich yet ethically-charged tool that clients value in therapy and with which therapists need to get evermore acquainted.

This is a portfolio of academic, therapeutic practice and research work. It consists of three dossiers that demonstrate my personal and professional development as a counselling psychologist throughout my training. The academic dossier contains three papers. The first is an exploration of the concept of therapeutic empathy within the context of a review and critique of a paper on empathy within person-centred theory. The second explores working psychodynamically with a client suffering from depression, and draws on the psychoanalytic concepts of anaclitic and introjective depression. The third paper examines the integration of cognitive therapy and gender role strain theory, and considers the effectiveness and limitations of this approach. The therapeutic practice dossier focuses on my clinical experience, and contains a descriptive overview of my clinical placements as well as a final clinical paper which provides a personal narrative of my evolving identity as a counselling psychologist. The research dossier contains a literature review and two research studies relating to the male gender role and its implications for therapeutic practice and training. The literature review explores and critiques the overarching ways in which male gender has been conceptualised, researched, and employed in therapeutic practice, and highlights areas which warrant further investigation. The first research report is a critical discursive psychological analysis of male therapists working with men, which identifies interpretative repertoires the therapists may draw on, and ideological dilemmas they face. The second research report is an interpretative phenomenological analysis of how men experience becoming counselling psychologists, which identifies three superordinate themes which encapsulate and elucidate their experiences.

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There is a dearth of research into the implementation of person-centred planning (PCP). Drawing from a broader research base, literature from the learning disability arena looking at helping behaviour is mainly quantitative in nature, focuses on the cognitive and emotional aspects, and has contradictory findings. In response to the inconsistencies and paucities, this study has investigated how support staff experience PCP with adults with autism. A mixed methodology using a sequential explanatory design was used. A quantitative phase (test-retest design) informed the main qualitative phase using semi-structured interview data. The quantitative phase \ employed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Emotional Reactions to Challenging Behaviour questionnaire, given to forty-two participants after PCP training. Twenty- six participants completed the measures again six months later. No significant differences were found on the test-retest analyses. The qualitative phase employed semi-structured interviews with three support workers. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the interview data. Two super- ordinate themes arose from the data: 'Why am I here and what am I doing?' and 'Negotiating the differences in applying person-centred planning'. In the first super- ordinate theme, participants highlighted dilemmas they experienced when applying PCP to their clients. Struggles with adhering to the PCP model while still considering their client's best interests became apparent. They appeared to draw on motivations to keep going in their struggles at work. The second super-ordinate theme, participants' struggles to understand and negotiate the differences between themselves and their clients, arose, along with managing their emotions at work. An emergent theme was the apparent altruistic nature of the participants. The participants' experiences suggest that the PCP model may need to be adapted for successful implementation with those with autism. The findings are applied to a transactional model of stress. Implications for counselling psychology are discussed.

There is considerable research to suggest that South Asians residing in the United Kingdom have comparatively low rates of mental health service utilization. Whilst several possible explanations have been offered by researchers, including lack of available information, language barriers, and variations in help-seeking behaviour, existing studies have yielded inconclusive and contradictory results. Many of these have primarily employed culturally heterogeneous samples of South Asians, thereby failing to take into consideration distinct inter-cultural variations in terms oflanguage, history, migration patterns, religious and cultural practices, and acculturation. Additionally, a number of studies have predominantly •• focused on the experiences of South Asian women, thereby disregarding the perceptions and experiences of South Asian men. A large body of evidence, mainly quantitative in nature, has reported that men delay seeking help for a range of health issues. However, such studies have been criticised for embodying a distinctly white, middle class, Western male perspective of masculinity. Currently, there is a dearth of studies exploring the help-seeking experiences and world views of ethnic minority men. The current study hopes to address these particular gaps in the research. It seeks to give voice to a small, homogenous sample of first-generation Punjabi Pakistani men in order to gain a richer understanding of their coping experiences and how these influence their views and feelings about seeking psychological support. A qualitative approach was adopted. Seven first-generation, Punjabi Pakistani immigrant males (n = 7) aged between 21 and 35 were interviewed using semi-structured interviews.

This study investigated the resilience response of survivors of Irish institutional abuse; who were subjected to significant adversity from a very young age and for many of them it continued throughout their lives. A qualitative approach was deployed, using semi-structured interviews and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse the data. Participants were two women and six men, aged between 29 and 65 years of age, who were all survivors of institutional abuse. The analysis produced three super-ordinate themes, which represented three life periods. Results demonstrated that the process of resilience is very much context-dependent and that the process, in the way that it is expressed by each individual, can change throughout the life span based on the availability of internal assets and external resources. The findings in this study can support Counselling Psychologists in how they approach their clinical work, to combine deficit-based work in conjunction with strengths-based initiatives that highlight and strengthen a client's resilience.

This study explores the research question of how individuals who experience health anxiety perceive death. Health anxiety can be described as a severe and persistent type of anxiety focused on health which often involves preoccupation with, and misinterpretation of bodily symptoms. People who are anxious about their health have previously been found to have a greater fear of death than other people. Eight participants who presented with symptoms of health anxiety where asked to talk about their perceptions of death. A semi-structured interview schedule was utilized in an attempt to shed further light on these previous findings. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the data reveals the perception of death as involving three major themes: 'A fragmented self, 'Fear of death- consequences and symbolic threats', and 'Fear-regulation'. It is suggested that the participants hold threatening ideas of death, and that their 'fragmented' perception of self may be related to these threatening perceptions. Also the participants were found to engage in an attempt to regulate their fears. The results of this study are discussed and related to psychological theories which offer useful frameworks within which to understand the participants' perceptions, including Terror Management Theory (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999), Self-discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987), and Selfregulation Theory (Muraven, Baumeister, & Tice, 1999). The findings may be used to further research the relevance of these theories within the health anxiety population. Finally, suggestions are made in terms of how these findings may contribute to the development of the psychological treatment of this group of individuals, from a counselling psychology perspective.

Convicting and incarcerating innocent people has damaging consequences for individuals that can last a lifetime (Grounds, 2004; Konvisser, 2010; Cutler, 2012). Research in this area from a psychological perspective is in its infancy and there is a need to expand this. Currently no research has been conducted in this area from the perspective of counselling psychology. Therefore. this study aims to contribute towards the current body of literature of wrongful incarceration from this perspective. This study takes a qualitative approach to the exploration of the phenomenon of wrongful incarceration. Seven Mexican men with an indigenous background, who claimed to have been wrongfully incarcerated in Mexico City, took part in semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three superordinate themes and subsequent subthemes were identified . These themes related to the mechanisms of survival employed by participants to cope with their incarceration; to their real and inner relations with others; and to their perception of and the changes and losses following the experience. Results show that participants manifested a number of defense mechanisms and developed coping strategies to cope with the experience. Participants spoke about the importance of external family support and t heir mental internal resources for surviving the experience. They also discussed the impact of the experience in their self-concept and on t heir life post incarceration. Implications for clinical practice and for settings working with people undergoing a similar experience are discussed. Moreover, routes for future research are considered

This portfolio is submitted for the award of the Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at City University. It consists of three parts: a research project, a client study and a publishable paper. The focus of all three parts is the relationships between and around therapist and client when clients seek to alleviate psychological distress in the face of adversity. The research uses a phenomenological perspective to examine the experience of psychologists who provide psychological interventions for adult cancer patients. The over-riding theme which emerged was the systemic context that participants experience in the course of their clinical work . The client study presents a piece of clinical work with a very frightened client who had experienced multiple traumatic experiences as the result of organised violence. It describes the way in which Narrative Exposure Therapy might be adapted to the pace of a particularly hesitant and frightened client. The foundation of this work was the relationship between client and therapist and the impact of family members on that therapy. The publishable paper is a condensation of the research prepared for submission to Psycho-Oncology. Research and clinical work are linked by the common theme of working with clients who face genuine adversity: the diagnosis and treatment of cancer or multiple traumatic experiences. The phenomenological stance of the research might initially seem very different to the evidence based stance of the client study. The preface to this portfolio argues that they are complementary and coexisting types of knowledge and therefore form a coherent whole.