Resilience is a term of increasing prevalence in many aspects of society including the workplace. This thesis has sought to examine the relationship resilience has with coping, engagement, and life satisfaction. Data was collected via a survey that included standard measures for the variables of interest and two open-ended questions targeting sources of stress and sources of satisfaction. Findings show a positive relationship between resilience and task-focused coping, engagement, and life satisfaction. No relationship was found between resilience and maladaptive coping or social support. Additionally, it was found that resilience acted as a full mediator in the relationship between task-focused coping and engagement, but had no mediating effect in the relationship between task-focused coping and life satisfaction. The open-ended questions identified that the same demand frequently acted as both a source of stress and a source of satisfaction.

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is an autoimmune syndrome characterized by a severe and rapid onset of paralysis that ascends without warning. It has an unknown aetiology and is generally unknown by most people, including medical professionals. When a person who has had GBS is asked to speak about their experience, they are likely to talk about aspects of it that are personally meaningful. Their account can be likened to a story in that it collates seemingly unconnected facts, episodes of activity and emotional attributions into a sequence that provides knowledge and understanding. A story is a powerful form for expressing suffering and experiences and so is particularly suitable for the study of trauma and illness. The actual process of creating the story, plus its presentational and organisational forms, provides sources for uncovering the identities authors choose to create and present of themselves. Six people who have had GBS were interviewed about their experience, and their stories were analysed using a narrative inquiry to discern the meanings attributed to GBS from the participants’ own understandings and perspectives. The intended focus of the research was holistic and content based. The result of the narrative inquiry was a plot common to all six narratives. Namely, GBS is an inexplicable condition, during which horrendous things happen, but people do recover with time and it is likely their life view will be changed in the process. Four fundamental issues, identity, meaning, making sense and meaningfulness were drawn from the stories and configured into a narrative of the researcher’s making. What the participants chose to speak about became the meanings, or themes, major and minor, of their stories. No event has meaning in itself, however traumatic events can precipitate crises of meaning. When these crises are viewed within the context of other events, and are perceived to add value to life, then they have meaningfulness. In the telling of meanings and meaningfulness, the purpose for storying and the audience to whom the story is directed are the criteria for which the storylines are chosen. Both the story and the storying provide opportunities for the authors to create and offer images of themselves, that are then open to interpretation by an audience. As a traumatic experience, GBS enabled six people to tell their stories. In doing so they were able to make sense of important issues for themselves, and re-examine the way they saw themselves and the world.

Despite evidence to the contrary, policy makers, some researchers and many who provide health and social services to sex workers continue to reflect and reinforce the notion that sex workers are dysfunctional and constitute a threat to public health. This thesis presents the results of a study which explicitly examined how indoor sex workers look after their psychological wellbeing. Twelve participants (who had worked as sex workers for at least 3 years) took part in semi-structured interviews and discussed how they looked after themselves both at work and in their wider social context. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Two main themes emerged from the data. The first, “doing sex work”, relates to workplace practices. The second theme, “being a sex worker”, relates to how the women understand their experience of being a sex worker in their social context and how they care for themselves in this arena; also apparent in this theme are aspects related to entry and exit of the industry. All participants took part in the study to increase understanding of and social justice for sex workers. Most of the participants see sex work as having a positive contribution to their personal growth. The findings show that participants are resilient and employ self-care practices that are commonly used by many in occupations that deal with people or who are stigmatised in some way. Major conclusions drawn from the study are that working in a supportive environment, prior understandings of sex work, personal traits and reasons for entering the sex industry are closely related to positive psychological wellbeing.

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Family participation in residential interventions for children has been reliably shown to enhance children’s adaptation to the community following discharge. This finding, however, had predominantly been observed in long-term residential programmes in North America. This thesis examines the influence of family involvement on outcome for children in a short-term residential intervention - the Children’s Health Camp, in Auckland, New Zealand. This service offers children and families, who may be experiencing social, emotional, physical and/or behavioural challenges, individualised interventions that often include a five-week residential stay. A ‘high family involvement’ condition, a community-based programme that followed a residential intervention, was compared with a ‘low family involvement’ condition (the traditional residential programme). No statistically significant differences were observed between the groups on parent-report measures of child behaviour and parenting practices, although significant improvements in children’s behaviour (including emotional, social and conduct aspects) for both groups were found. Reasons for the lack of difference between the groups, and the difficulties inherent in conducting outcome research in a residential facility for children are highlighted. Other influences on outcome for children and families, such as residential staff members’ attitudes toward family involvement were also examined. The optimal conditions for successful short-term residential interventions for children are proposed.

The aim of this study was to explore the experience of hearing voices in the general New Zealand adult population. This included mapping the topography of voices and the impact of the experience on participants’ lives, exploring participants’ explanatory models, investigating coping strategies and support structures, and developing a model of the essence of hearing voices. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of questionnaire (n=154) and interview (n=50) data revealed a great diversity of experiences, both within and among participants. Of all topographical variables significantly related to emotional impact (content, form, duration, intrusiveness and control), voice content was the only significant predictor variable, accurately predicting the emotional response of 93.3% of participants. Overall, participants who valued their voice experiences tended to have spiritual beliefs, a more positive emotional reaction and less contact with mental health services. In contrast, participants who experienced mostly unwanted voices tended to have biological and/or psychological understandings of their voice experiences, a more negative emotional reaction to them, and increased contact with mental health services. Participants reported using a vast array of coping strategies, with varying degrees of success. Individualised techniques were reported to be the most effective, followed by setting aside a time to listen to the voices. In terms of help and support, participants called for a model of intervention that accepted their voice experiences as real, took an holistic approach incorporating contextual, cultural and spiritual factors, and worked with voice-hearers, their families and the public to provide information about voice phenomena and normalise the experience. Using a phenomenological approach, a model of the essential structure of hearing voices is proposed, comprising five components: the content of the voices is personally meaningful to the voice-hearer; the voices have a characterised identity; the person has a relationship with their voices; the experience has a significant impact on the voice-hearer’s life; and the experience has a compelling sense of reality. The implications of this research include validating voice-hearers’ perspectives of the experience, informing clinical work with voice-hearers, and informing the development of local and national-level services, such as a New Zealand Hearing Voices Network.

Psychosis typically emerges after a heterogeneous range of premonitory symptoms. This has been labelled the ‘pre-psychotic period’ (PPP). Emotional disturbances are prominent features of this state and have shown to be risk factors for psychosis. The present study had two interrelated aims: to explore in-depth the experiential nature of the emotional changes that occur during the PPP; and to examine whether there are similarities between these pre-psychotic emotional changes and the concept of delusional atmosphere. Twelve men experiencing first-episode psychosis with delusional thought content were recruited for the study. Information regarding their emotional experiences during the PPP was gathered using a semi-structured interview format. Corroborating information about observable changes in the men’s behaviour during the PPP was also gathered from a family member or friend of theirs who had close contact with them during this time. The data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. A variety of strong emotional changes were reported during the PPP, including depression, anxiety, anger, and guilt, as well as love and happiness. Negative emotions were prominent during this time, but positive emotions were also found to be a feature of this state for some people. Overall, the PPP was characterised by an increase in distress over time. Features of delusional atmosphere that were evident during the PPP included: experiences of derealisation and the environment feeling different; anxiety and confusion and a drive to find and explanation for the changes that were being experienced; and a sense of apprehension that something significant was about to happen. The relevance of these findings to researchers and clinicians working in this area is discussed.

The 'model minority' label given to Chinese populations in New Zealand and other Western countries have made it difficult to truly comprehend the difficulties faced by some Chinese ethnic minorities. Despite comparable rates and types of mental health problems to their European counterparts, identifiable barriers have led to Chinese ethnic minorities underutilising mental health services. The present study investigated the mental health service utilisation in native- and foreign-born Chinese youth in New Zealand, paying particular attention to barriers to service utilisation and viable solutions for these difficulties. It consisted of three individual projects and explored the views of Chinese community and mental health professionals and Chinese university students, comparing their perspectives to university students of other ethnicities. Findings showed that despite a willingness to seek help from their family and mental health professionals (e.g., psychologists, school counsellors), respondents identified a myriad of obstacles to the help seeking of Chinese youth. These included physical barriers (e.g., financial and transport constraints), personal barriers (e.g., stigma, problems accepting their difficulties), service barriers (e.g., paucity of knowledge regarding mental health problems and available services) and family barriers (e.g., obstruction from family members). Family and service barriers distinguished the difficulties faced by Chinese in comparison to European youth, particularly with regards to the adherence of professionals to stereotypes of Chinese youth, a unique finding of this study. In order to reduce such barriers, the Chinese university students and professionals advocated for greater education regarding mental health problems and services in the Chinese community, education for Chinese parents regarding adolescent issues, an increase in the number of practicing Chinese professionals that is coupled with improved cross-cultural training for non-Chinese professionals, as well as individual assessment and treatment approaches with Chinese youth and their families. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

This dissertation investigates the management of teams at work. A thorough examination of the literature on small groups, coupled with field research on the implementation of teamwork in the New Zealand operations of a large multinational provides insights about how members of a team think. It is shown that the perception of membership by team members influences their ability to make effective use of resources and make informed decisions, not only within the team, but also with regard to its impact on the organisation. Social identity theory provides a theoretical model for the psychological processes of team membership. The processes of categorisation, self-categorisation and social identification are mapped against the introduction of teamwork over a period of two years to assess whether or not they are relevant. The results from surveys of and interviews with senior staff members support the processes described by social identity theory, where groups can operate as separate cognitive and emotional units as relevant for the management of teams at work. Because of the unique psychological processes, team members at work have to be interacted with (and be given information) differently than individuals in order to behave as a high-performing team. This study develops the implications of social identity theory for the introduction and management of teams at work, leading to high performance for the organisation. Key words: Teamwork, social identity, social cognition

Five experiments were carried out to discover whether there is a subjective enhancement of temporal contours analogous to the Mach band effects in spatial vision. A transient overshoot in the incremental threshold occurred immediately after the crest of rising linear ramps at photopic levels. A psychophysical matching experiment verified that this peaking effect is perceived as a bright pulse and can be considered the temporal equivalent of the bright Mach band. No equivalent of the dark Mach band at the foot of rising linear ramps was found. Rather there was an anticipatory decrease of sensitivity (Crawford effect) at the base of ascending gradients. The magnitude of this effect was directly proportional to the rate of change of the stimulus at photopic levels. Data from descending ramps was less simple to interpret. A small rise in incremental threshold was sometimes observed at the crest of ramps, but this effect was much less pronounced than the peak at the crest of equivalent ascending ramps. Matching procedures located troughs at the foot of descending ramps which correspond to the dark spatial Mach band. This effect was less apparent when incremental threshold techniques were employed. An experiment using exponential rather than linear change in luminance over time gave results in general accord with the above. The Crawford effect was found to follow the Bunsen-Roscoe Law. It was found that the transient undershoot and overshoot effects were related to the rate of change rather than the actual form of the ramp when the rate of change was greater than about 300mL per second. Impulse responses were derived by differentiating step responses. Ascending steps generated a biphasic impulse response and descending steps give a triphasic unit impulse response. This lack of equivalence over conditions is diagnostic of system nonlinearity. Fourier analysis of the impulse responses showed equivalent spectral components and lowpass filter action in each case, indicating change in gain and phasing rather than time constants occur between 'on' and 'off' conditions. The system was shown to be quasilinear within conditions since linear convolution of the impulse responses with appropriate ramps generated functions that were a fair approximation to the psychophysical response to such ramps. The relationship between the impulse response and the spatial equivalent line spread function was discussed and the similarity of the impulse responses to dynamic changes in sensitivity inferred from results of masking experiments pointed out. The results were then considered in relation to a multichannel model for processing spatiotemporal information.