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Abstract The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the popular male K-pop group BTS has influenced seven people, to motivate them to a better mental health and new life path in Sweden. The study examines purple dreams that represents mine and six other individuals’ stories that has found similar motivation from Korean popular culture. The method used in this study are autoethnography, my own prior memories and qualitative methods in the form of three interviews and three written stories. The theoretical perspective in the study consists of Blumer's interactionism, which provides a closer insight into how a fandom as a whole community acts and reacts in its inner workings. The results show that the informants experience an improvement in their mental state through this community. It also showed that communication between fans has helped improve mood, providing fans with a community to help fulfill some goals on the road to their dreams. It emerged in the interviews and stories that fans, and idols play a significant role in the BTS community. The community's experience show that culture and interaction are important to people's lifestyles and have contributed to better mental health.

Children detained in juvenile detention centers in the United States are a unique population. They are neither incarcerated, nor are they free to live in society. Although some popular literature does exist on juvenile detention, such literature is minimal. Further, there are few research studies on this population in any field of inquiry. Indeed the entire subject of juvenile detention has been largely overlooked by research scientists, as well as theologians. The focus of this empirical study is the theology and spirituality of children in a single juvenile detention center in New Jersey, US. Currently, there are no studies on this topic. This study begins to address that void and represents the first theological research of its kind on this population. The methodological approach of the thesis is multi-disciplinary. While the study addresses theology and spirituality as separate categories, it also integrates theology with research in psychology and clinical mental health. The project itself consists of 200 individual, face-to-face interviews with male juvenile residents detained in the Ocean County Juvenile Detention Center, Toms River, New Jersey, US. An original questionnaire has been developed by the author as a research tool. This empirical research adds to the academic literature on children in juvenile detention centers in the United States and recommends ways that staff may communicate with children to begin a theological dialogue. Further, this thesis offers a specific methodology and research tool to be duplicated for use in other juvenile detention centers toward working with children in a concrete, evidence-based, spiritual context. v This study also includes a chapter on the evolution of the author’s spirituality and theology in the course of the project and attempts to locate the self of the researcher within the study. Finally, this thesis presents an outline for a new hermeneutic in working with children in a juvenile detention setting. This new approach represents a practical step toward bridging an existing gap between a stated need for a new hermeneutic for working with children in theological literature and its inception. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The professional development of a career counselling intern on a satellite campus at a distance education institution was facilitated with the use of a heutagogic learning strategy. The heutagogic learning process was recorded by reflective writing based on Kolb's experiential learning model. This research is a disquisition of the reflective dataset. The research is an autoethnographic case study in the constructionist paradigm with a creative analysis process. During the research process features about the benefits of heutagogic learning in the professional development of the career counselling intern were critically constructed. The findings of the research are captured in memescapes showing mindset changes and mental transformations on patterns which describe the theory-praxis gap, diversity, wellness, the macro-ethic. The recommendations include the hope that these findings will feed through to inform future career counselling internships in the IOP field. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / MCom (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

This study examines through autoethnographic inquiry my research journey in the world of childhood cancer. The unfolding research experience eventually led to the focus of this investigation which is exploring stories of coping with childhood cancer in a support group for parents. Using the principles of ethnographic epistemology this study explores the stories of eight parents whose children were diagnosed with cancer and who decided to join the support group for parents called, TOUCH. An overview of the existing body of knowledge on childhood cancer and the family is presented as well as the value of a social support group in parenting a child with cancer. The need of a conceptual shift in order to understand the problem of parenting a child with cancer is propagated. The stories of eight parents within the setting of a social support group are presented. Through the principles of the qualitative method of ethnography the story of the child's cancer is described by means of emerging themes. The coping mechanisms used to cope in this world of uncertainty and ambiguity, follows. Finally the contribution of the support group is discussed in terms of my relationship with the group member, the group members' communication pattern and what was perceived to be helpful to the group member. The eight stories discussed all follow the same pattern. Four hypotheses emerged from the eight stories described and are presented in the final chapter. The strengths and limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future research. / Psychology / D. Lit. et Phil. (Psychology)

The complexity of mental development in humans together with human interaction in the social context presents itself to be a continued source of investigation and exploration. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is such a field of study in the discipline of psychology. Researchers emphasized the importance and value of emotional development ("soft-skills") equal to cognitive development (“hard-skills”). EI abilities are associated with key skills and competencies required for operating successfully in today’s organizations. This study focused on this theme specifically and tried to determine how EI training impacted on the success of the individual who fits the modern working profile and how emotionally intelligent employees are beneficial to organisational success overall. An ethnographic qualitative study (including an autoethnography) was performed on individuals of different participant groupings who completed the Neuro-Link EI Program. The aim was to assess if they showed increased growth in areas of EI, specifically addressed in the program namely self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social management. Findings indicated that EI training works with positive results. It was of great value to the individual having an immense impact on their personal lives. It further had a major positive impact on the group dynamics of individuals who attended the training. At companies where facilitators presented the program, EI training had a positive impact. A conclusion on the impact that such training had on the two companies whose staff members directly participated in this study, was not yet possible at the time of the study. The development of an awareness model for the promotion of EI training in the workplace is recommended. This may increase available knowledge regarding corporate EI training but also accelerates an emerging, but a too slowly growing movement. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)