The current study focuses on understanding the lived experiences of male professional footballers during the process of career transition, specifically the transition out of professional football. The study was carried out over two stages. Within both stages of the research, the professional footballers found themselves within or, facing the possibility of career transition out of the game. Stage one used a focus group method with eight professional players facing the possibility of career transition. Stage two adopted face-to-face and online interviews with twelve players, being made up of professional players (some facing the possibility of career transition and some who at the time were in a rehabilitation centre for addiction and within career transition) as well as, a group of potential (Academy) professional players all facing the possibility of transition out of the game. The interviews allowed the players to express what it is like to anticipate or live through the experience of career transition out of football. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis was used for stage one and elements of van Manen’s human science/hermeneutic approach during stage two. The analysis of the interviews produced a number of key themes, including experiencing ‘self and identity’, ‘help and support’, ‘the gaze of others’ and, ‘uncertainty and disempowerment’. Importance for professional footballers was laid on meeting the requirements and expectations of others within the world of professional football. For some, this was experienced as a need to put on a pretence to live up to requirements, whilst for others it meant accepting abusive treatment as part of their development. What is more, the players often felt constantly judged and assessed and this was something they lived even in the absence of others. The players’ experienced a need to portray the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, especially physical and mental strength at all times. In addition, the players felt like commodities, as if they were machines. Therefore, some professional footballers’ experienced conflict between their public and private self, especially during difficult times and thus, a need to outwardly show to others that they were coping with things, when actually in private they were not. The research findings inform a number of recommendations to sporting organisations, professional football clubs and professional footballers to improve the current and future lived experiences of professional footballers. Principally, there is a need to educate and develop those within professional football, in particular those in positions of responsibility, about the ways in which their relationships are influential in the lives of professional footballers in the immediate and long term. Encouraging professional footballers to adopt different ways of being men, could be seen as beneficial to professional footballers’ lived experiences. Hegemonic masculinity ideals in the culture of professional football could be replaced by healthier scripts, such as pursuing holistic development and improving team spirit and cohesion.

This thesis explores emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation in the context of ebusiness entrepreneurship. Based on a critique of the dialectic interpretation of knowledge dynamics, it forwards a perspective that stresses the creative force of emergence that disrupts existent meanings and produces new potentialities for innovation. It suggests ways of using such a perspective in policy-targeted research. The first part elaborates on the traditional uses of concepts of knowledge in explanations of entrepreneurial innovation and on the need to account for a dynamic perspective on emergent knowledge. The thesis employs work by Deleuze and Guattari as meta-theoretical vehicle to expand the conceptual potential of social representations theory beyond its traditional focus on a dialectic ontology of becoming. It highlights a dynamic which does not exclusively assume conceptual difference as the source of the novel and which allows for patterns of becoming other than the triadic continuity of dialectics. Together, this provides new possibilities for an understanding of knowledge dynamics taking into account both adaptive and creative dynamics of emergence. The empirical part combines thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with Deleuzian analysis of participant observation to facilitate an exploration of emergent conditions for innovation in a particular milieu of e-business entrepreneurship. The exploration shows how changes in shared evaluative dimensions guided – and constrained – the creation of new concepts. Simultaneously, distinct assemblages arising from novel connections of affect and technology in networks created the conditions of fluidity and ambiguity required for new knowledge: in the aftermath of the dotcom crash, new concepts of network leadership and trust in business interaction were emerging. This study forwards new insights on the study of emergent knowledge dynamics as oscillating between rhizomic opening and dialectic closure. It is in the disruptive encounters between the two that new conditions for innovation can assemble.

This study set out to investigate the understanding of psychological interventions and their place in practice (psychological mindedness) at an Australian mental health service and whether or not it was possible to train clinicians to introduce cognitive behavioural therapy to practice. The study investigated if, after training, clinicians' self-efficacy and readiness to use learnt skills is increased as they begin to deliver cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to patients. To do this a methodological approach was adopted, developed and delivered in the spirit of action research and conducted utilising a practice development model, that employed skills based education and experiential learning methods. A staff scoping survey was conducted to ascertain the psychological mindedness of clinical staff and to gain a picture of the availability of talking therapies across the health service. Following this survey an eight-day CBT training course was developed and delivered. A pre- and post- course questionnaire was applied to gain data on participant’s readiness to use skills and an increase in their self-efficacy pertinent to CBT that they learnt during the course. The results of the scoping survey showed that there was use of talking therapies by clinicians and that these clinicians desired training in CBT. The results of the CBT course questionnaire showed that it is possible to increase clinician’s self-efficacy and readiness to introduce skills to practice post attendance on an eight-day CBT training course. The delivery of focused talking therapy training across a mental health service can over time and with adequate levels of support and supervision, enable the delivery of CBT to service users. Principles of action research, practice development and the use of skills based education and experiential learning methods if implemented and supported actively can increase patient’s access to psychological therapies and train staff in the application of the same.

Background: From personal experience, plus a brief overview of literature, the researcher surmised that the potentially traumatic impact on patients of losing their analyst to terminal illness/sudden death had received scant attention from the psychoanalytic community. Listening directly to patients (as opposed to analysts) had been particularly overlooked. Literature Review: This initial hypothesis was confirmed/refined by this Review: it was felt that focusing on the account that patients gave of their experience would be the most appropriate means of eliciting information. Knowledge that would assist the psychoanalytic community to most effectively ensure the wellbeing of future patients. Methodology: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) seemed to most appropriately meet the aims of this research. 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted, allowing the flexibility in questioning that is an inherent characteristic of IPA. For consistency collecting, transcribing and analysing of data were undertaken by the researcher. Accepted ethical procedures were followed. Findings and Discussion: Five Superordinate Themes emerged based on 21 Major Themes – Changes in Analysis before Termination; Aftercare in Relation to Outcomes; The Inherent Nature of Analysis inc. Requirements of Analytic Training; Emotional/Psychic Effects; Experience Utilised. Within these 5 Superordinate Themes issues/dilemmas were identified that were detrimentally affecting, in some cases seriously, patients’ wellbeing. The majority of these issues had been identified, in some form, over the past 50 years but not adequately acknowledged/acted upon. Some new issues emerged, including problems that are occurring in the interface between formal executors and sick analysts. Suggestions were given that might be helpful for the profession to take forward. Conclusions: The researcher has separated out the variables that appear to affect the outcome for patients into those that are largely ‘fixed’ as opposed to those that are ‘more malleable’ and urges the psychoanalytic community to act speedily on the latter.

This exploratory, psychosocial study looks at what it means to be ‘school ready’ to the parents of children eligible for Pupil Premium funding, in a mainstream inner London primary school. Existing research exploring the topic of school readiness and transition to primary school remains predominantly in international territories. Furthermore, there is paucity of rich, qualitative accounts of parental views and experiences, despite the vital role parents play in supporting their child's education. A psychoanalytically informed approach, Free Association Narrative Interviewing (FANI), was used to interview three participants twice. The interview data was analysed using Thematic Analysis. The five themes identified are discussed in relation to existing research and psychological theory. The implications for the Educational Psychology profession, as well as for schools and other professionals, have been explored. Limitations of the current study, and thoughts about future research are considered.

The explanation of social behaviour requires an understanding of individual orientations to social issues as these exist relative to others. This thesis argues that whilst the attitude concept and social representations have illuminated certain aspects of social behaviour, both are handicapped by a restricted focus. The former’s focus on the evaluation of attitude objects excludes a reference to wider societal processes. The latter provides an account of societal contingencies, but excludes an explanation of individual orientations towards objects and issues in the social environment. This thesis postulates the point of view concept to bridge this gap, that provides an explanation of social behaviour at the situational level. This complements attitude and social representations in a nested, multilevel explanation of social behaviour. The point of view is defined as an outlook towards a social event, expressed as a claim, which can be supported by an argument of opinion based on a system of knowledge from which it derives its logic. It reflects an individual’s orientation towards a social object, relative to others. This thesis has demonstrated, in a series of empirical studies, that the point of view can be typified in three categories. A monological point of view is closed to another’s perspective. A dialogical point of view acknowledges another’s perspective but dismisses it as wrong. A metalogical point of view acknowledges the relativity of its’ perspective, and concedes to an alternative the possibility of being right. These different types were demonstrated to be characterised by differences in positioning and in individuals’ capacity to fit a given social reality. Such relational outcomes accrue as a function of the socio-cognitive structure of points of view in relation with another perspective. This thesis demonstrates that points of view, alongside attitudes and social representations, provides a multilevel explanation of social behaviour

The principal aim of the thesis is to re-vision what I am calling ‘the business domain’ by showing how different archetypal energies of the collective unconscious operate in it and how they structure the domain’s creative dynamics. In this task, I am drawing on a range of Jungian theories. While the psychoanalytic organisational approach, with its focus on the personal/group unconscious, is well developed, the Jungian organisational approach is in its infancy with the result that little is said in the relevant literature to date about collective unconscious dominants, the archetypes. The introduction of this perspective involves arguing against the prevailing psychoanalytic emphasis on the pathological aspects of the business domain. The key value of the archetypal approach is that it exposes the inherent tensions within business life. In addition, it adds a much-needed catalyst for bringing insight into creativity and innovation as they manifest in the business domain. Jungian psychology, as I argue, offers a perspective that is instructive for grasping the complexities of creativity in business, which differs from manifestations of creativity in other domains such as the arts and sciences. Jungian psychology could thus make a valuable contribution to the analysis of business dynamics. I will also demonstrate how the archetypal approach can be helpful in containing the unconscious projected contents (both personal and collective) inherent in the business domain. As a first step in delineating the value and scope of an archetypal understanding of the dynamics in the business domain, this thesis invites further consideration of the question about how this approach can be used to construct a theoretical framework for analysing the business domain and what this framework could look like.

Traditionally research into how we perceive our external world focused on the unisensory approach, examining how information is processed by one sense at a time. This produced a vast literature of results revealing how our brains process information from the different senses, from fields such as psychophysics, animal electrophysiology, and neuroimaging. However, we know from our own experiences that we use more than one sense at a time to understand our external world. Therefore to fully understand perception, we must understand not only how the brain processes information from individual sensory modalities, but also how and when this information interacts and combines with information from other modalities. In short, we need to understand the phenomenon of multisensory perception. The work in this thesis describes three experiments aimed to provide new insights into this topic. Specifically, the three experiments presented here focused on examining when and where effects related to multisensory perception emerged in neural signals, and whether or not these effects could be related to behaviour in a time-resolved way and on a trial-by-trial basis. These experiments were carried out using a novel combination of psychophysics, high density electroencephalography (EEG), and advanced computational methods (linear discriminant analysis and mutual information analysis). Experiment 1 (Chapter 3) investigated how behavioural and neural signals are modulated by the reliability of sensory information. Previous work has shown that subjects will weight sensory cues in proportion to their relative reliabilities; high reliability cues are assigned a higher weight and have more influence on the final perceptual estimate, while low reliability cues are assigned a lower weight and have less influence. Despite this widespread finding, it remains unclear when neural correlates of sensory reliability emerge during a trial, and whether or not modulations in neural signals due to reliability relate to modulations in behavioural reweighting. To investigate these questions we used a combination of psychophysics, EEG-based neuroimaging, single-trial decoding, and regression modelling. Subjects performed an audio-visual rate discrimination task where the modality (auditory, visual, audio-visual), stimulus stream rate (8 to 14 Hz), visual reliability (high/low), and congruency in rate between audio-visual stimuli (± 2 Hz) were systematically manipulated. For the behavioural and EEG components (derived using linear discriminant analysis), a set of perceptual and neural weights were calculated for each time point. The behavioural results revealed that participants weighted sensory information based on reliability: as visual reliability decreased, auditory weighting increased. These modulations in perceptual weights emerged early after stimulus onset (48 ms). The EEG data revealed that neural correlates of sensory reliability and perceptual weighting were also evident in decoding signals, and that these occurred surprisingly early in the trial (84 ms). Finally, source localisation suggested that these correlates originated in early sensory (occipital/temporal) and parietal regions respectively. Overall, these results provide the first insights into the temporal dynamics underlying human cue weighting in the brain, and suggest that it is an early, dynamic, and distributed process in the brain. Experiment 2 (Chapter 4) expanded on this work by investigating how oscillatory power was modulated by the reliability of sensory information. To this end, we used a time-frequency approach to analyse the data collected for the work in Chapter 3. Our results showed that significant effects in the theta and alpha bands over fronto-central regions occurred during the same early time windows as a shift in perceptual weighting (100 ms and 250 ms respectively). Specifically, we found that theta power (4 - 6 Hz) was lower and alpha power (10 – 12 Hz) was higher in audio-visual conditions where visual reliability was low, relative to conditions where visual reliability was high. These results suggest that changes in oscillatory power may underlie reliability based cue weighting in the brain, and that these changes occur early during the sensory integration process. Finally, Experiment 3 (Chapter 5) moved away from examining reliability based cue weighting and focused on investigating cases where spatially and temporally incongruent auditory and visual cues interact to affect behaviour. Known collectively as “cross-modal associations”, past work has shown that observers have preferred and non-preferred stimuli pairings. For example, subjects will frequently pair high pitched tones with small objects and low pitched tones with large objects. However it is still unclear when and where these associations are reflected in neural signals, and whether they emerge at an early perceptual level or later decisional level. To investigate these questions we used a modified version of the implicit association test (IAT) to examine the modulation of behavioural and neural signals underlying an auditory pitch – visual size cross modal association. Congruency was manipulated by assigning two stimuli (one auditory and one visual) to each of the left or right response keys and changing this assignment across blocks to create congruent (left key: high tone – small circle, right key: low tone – large circle) and incongruent (left key: low tone – small circle, right key: high tone – large circle) pairings of stimuli. On each trial, subjects were presented with only one of the four stimuli (auditory high tone, auditory low tone, visual small circle, visual large circle), and asked to respond which was presented as quickly and accurately as possible. The key assumption with such a design is that subjects should respond faster when associated (i.e. congruent) stimuli are assigned to the same response key than when two non-associated stimuli are. In line with this, our behavioural results demonstrated that subjects responded faster on blocks where congruent pairings of stimuli were assigned to the response keys (high pitch-small circle and low pitch large circle), than blocks where incongruent pairings were. The EEG results demonstrated that information about auditory pitch and visual size could be extracted from neural signals using two approaches to single-trial analysis (linear discriminant analysis and mutual information analysis) early during the trial (50ms), with the strongest information contained over posterior and temporal electrodes for auditory trials, and posterior electrodes for visual trials. EEG components related to auditory pitch were significantly modulated by cross-modal congruency over temporal and frontal regions early in the trial (~100ms), while EEG components related to visual size were modulated later (~220ms) over frontal and temporal electrodes. For the auditory trials, these EEG components were significantly predictive of single trial reaction times, yet for the visual trials the components were not. As a result, the data support an early and short-latency origin of cross-modal associations, and suggest that these may originate in a bottom-up manner during early sensory processing rather than from high-level inference processes. Importantly, the findings were consistent across both analysis methods, suggesting these effects are robust. To summarise, the results across all three experiments showed that it is possible to extract meaningful, single-trial information from the EEG signal and relate it to behaviour on a time resolved basis. As a result, the work presented here steps beyond previous studies to provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of audio-visual perception in the brain. / All experiments, although employing different paradigms and investigating different processes, showed early neural correlates related to audio-visual perception emerging in neural signals across early sensory, parietal, and frontal regions. Together, these results provide support for the prevailing modern view that the entire cortex is essentially multisensory and that multisensory effects can emerge at all stages during the perceptual process.

Principles of Realist Evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) were used alongside a framework based on Realist Social Theory (Archer, 1995; De Souza, 2013) in order to explore and explain the nature of the local parenting context in which the Holding Hands Parenting Programme (HHPP) was both embedded and functioned. The research identified particular mechanisms that were pre-existing in the local context in its structural, cultural, agential and relational aspects which were activated by the introduction of a parenting programme. It was carried out in a large shire county where the researcher worked as a Trainee Educational Psychologist. Stakeholders in the HHPP from various system levels, ranging from those with service and commissioning responsibilities to recipients of parenting support, participated in the study, providing a rich insight into the multi-layered local context. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used as a grounding framework for the analysis of data which followed a realist analytical process culminating in retroduction (Crinson, 2001) and six overarching themes were developed: (i) forward thinking; (ii) one size fits; (iii) collaboration; (iv) involvement; (v) barriers and (vi) perceptions and expectations. Network patterns (or configurations) were created which mapped out the relationship between aspects of the context, pre-existing mechanisms and the outcomes potentially generated as a result of a parenting programme. Existing literature was explored and findings formed a key part of the theorisation and retroductive phases of data analysis. Two overarching theories were constructed in order to summarise the concluding thoughts in this study on the relationship between the HHPP and its context. These were presented and can form the basis of future realist evaluation research. This research contributes to the further development of the HHPP as it seeks to use innovative and creative ways to support a wider range of parents within a complex and changing local context. Implications for future research and links to the practice of educational psychologists are discussed and the potential value principles of realist evaluation may have for an educational psychology service is outlined.

Adolescent well-being is a national concern and government priority. It is increasingly recognised that schools have an important role to play in contributing to building resiliency. Indeed, the revised Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice in the UK, has recently introduced the term ‘social emotional and mental health’ (SEMH) as a category of need which formalises school involvement in this area. As such, the present study, which provides an extended understanding of the way in which staff with a key role in SEMH in secondary school organisations engage in thinking and talking about the issue, is both timely and pertinent. This study sought to develop a conceptual understanding grounded in data for this purpose and to inform external agency involvement. The research was exploratory and employed a flexible design through a grounded theory methodology with ethnographic components. Individual interviews were conducted with members of staff holding key roles linked to SEMH across four secondary school organisations and ethnographic data was gathered from varied sources to understand cultural meanings. Analysis was carried out in line with grounded theory approaches and in consideration of levels of organisational culture. The research process and findings from the present study led to the development of the conceptual "Model of Integrated Role Identity for Capacity Building". This model, encompassing this study's two emergent conceptual categories of ‘integrating personal-professional identity for SEMH’ and ‘navigating supported agency for organisational growth’, offers an understanding of the social processes involved in secondary school organisations in relation to SEMH. The proposed model based on this understanding may guide school leadership, organisational development and external agency support in the future. Indicated implications for practice include support for staff, organisational capacity building, and inclusion policy and guidance. Implications are considered with reference to Educational Psychology Service involvement in particular.