M.Ed. / Educational psychology honours students and Theraplay: a relational case inquiry. The South African community is moving towards fundamental socio-and-political restructuring. Part of the restructuring process is establishing suitable psychological intervention for the needy black child. From the researcher's understanding of the black child's need and knowledge of the different types of play therapies, the research question pertaining to how black students would relate to Theraplay emerged. The aim of the study was to investigate how black students relate to the proposed Theraplay principles. The method of investigation entailed superimposing a training model onto a research format in order to train and simultaneously observe the students relating to Theraplay. The five training phases of the model served as template to five observation opportunities for data collection. The data were analysed and consolidated in order to arrive at eight final categories. These eight categories were interpreted in relation to the proposed Theraplay principles, and black philosophy, in order to draw conclusions on how the students related to Theraplay. The research found that the students related well to the Theraplay principles of nurturing, intrusion, structuring and using the child as play object. The students related poorly, however, to the Theraplay principles of challenging, differentiating, playing in the "here-and-now" and controlling the sessions. Implications ofthe findings for practice, for educational psychology and for research are stated in conclusion to the inquiry.

M.A. (Psychology) / Anger, hostility and aggression have long been regarded as important factors in the etiology of essential hypertension and coronary heart disease. Fast changing lifestyles and cultural differences are among a few of the factors that create stress, 'disease', stress in addition to the development of the self-generation of stress by means of the type A behavioral pattern. Anger and aggression are components that apparently account for the largest amount of variance in the type A behavior pattern. These emotions are again associated with elevated systolic blood pressure levels. The aim of this study was therefore to determine whether hypertension was indeed associated with anger and aggression amongst urban as well as rural Blacks in South Africa. Seftel (1980) found a very high prevalence of hypertension in Johannesburg Blacks and Seedat (1978) found a similarly high prevalence in Durban Zulu, possibly lending support to the hypothesis that urbanization was associated with the development of the type A behavioural pattern, and thus causal to the development of hypertension. Two groups, one consisting of hypertensives, and the other of people with other cardiovascular diseases were subjected to the Anger-Expression Scale and the Grant Urban-Rural Scale. The result of the study provided support for the thesis while the hypothesis that stated that hypertension would indicate a higher urbanization supported. In essence the results of the study indicated that there was a definite correlation between elevated blood pressure levels among urban Black South Africans and the chronic suppression of anger and aggression, as well as the inability to express these emotions.

M.A. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Litt. et Phil. / A problematic aspect of the latter half of the twentieth century in the South African health context, has been the change of the incidence of hypertension amongst black South Africans from being barely. endemic to being a virtual epidemic. This change in hypertension has had several negative components, notably the development of malignant hypertension wherein a markedly accelerated rate of development in hypertension has led to severely high incidences of morbidity and mortality amongst black South Africans notably in urban areas. Many researchers have cited the rapid process of urbaniztion as being the major cause, of this rapid rise in the relative incidence of hypertension amongst black South Africans. Whereas previously, the rapid rise of hypertension in urbanizing black South Africans has been attributed to the social readjustment, associated with urbanization, recent research have suggested that it is not only stressrelated, but also related to a change in basic lifestyle. Basic lifestyle changes have been found to include a change in work ethic from being a rural, cooperative work ethic, to being an urbanized firstworld type A, aggressive, competitive workstyle. This has led also to changes in eating habits with the ingestion of more salt, fats and oils, and has led to a hurried, but non exercised lifestyle. Because of the rapid increase of incidence of hypertension amongst black South Africans, the treatment of this condition has become problematic~ While black South Africans do not respond as well to traditional pharmacological interventions in this condition, they also show side-effects which make it very difficult for them to continue taking this medication. The cost aspects have also been noted to be prohibitively high and the availability of medicines because of the cost aspects has been projected to decline in the coming century. For this reason it would be "important to address other adjunctive measures to treat hypertension amongst black South Africans. In addition to standard harmacological interventions , it appears that there has been mention in the Iiterature of. lifestyle changes to be an efficacious intervention method in stabilizing and reducing blood pressure amongst hypertensives. This has however not been investigated individually or systematically amongst black South Africans. It was therefore the purpose of this study to investigate the effectiveness of lifestyle intervention programs, notably an aerobic exercise intervention, a dietary intervention, and an intervention to increase assertiveness and therefore reduce the aggressiveness associated with the competitive working style acquired by black South Africans. In order to test the efficacy of these treatment measures, a large group of black mineworkers were selected on a basis of meeting the diagnostic criteria for essential hypertension. These black mineworkers were then systematically sUbjected to an aerobic exercise intervention, a dietary intervention, and anger management by means of assertiveness training. Various measures were performed on a pretest and posttest basis. All three interventions were shown to have moderate efficacy. It was found that aerobic exercise, the dietary intervention and the anger management to be associated with a decline in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and to be associated with a reduction in the taking of hypertensive medication as ordered by the attending physicians. The aerobic exercise intervention also indicated that black South African mineworkers are relatively unfit and a ch~nge in fitness resulted in a decline in systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The dietary intervention proved to be efficient in terms of changing lifestyle eating habits. Of note is the fact that there was a substantial decrease in the taking of medication when compared to a· control group. It would appear from this research that the specific forms of lifestyle change in black hypertensives noted in this study would be an efficient adjunct or even a substitute for present treatment of hypertension amongst black mineworkers.