According to recent figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and Eurostat in England and Wales (2016), 42% of marriages are expected to end in divorce. Existing literature is varied and often contradictory about the implications of this phenomenon for the offspring of divorced parents, proposing evidence for both positive and negative outcomes. The majority of studies have used a quantitative approach to focus on the effects of parental divorce on children and adolescents. This qualitative study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore how emerging adults describe their experiences of parental divorce. Semi-structured interviews produced in-depth insights into how respondents made sense of their experiences. The following three key themes emerge: loss, highlighting feelings of grief and disbelief related to the end of the 'family' as respondents had known it; altered reality, in which respondents describe issues related to altered parental relationships and mediating interparental conflict post-divorce; and finally hope and continuity, highlighted the way that emerging adults adapt, adjust and develop coping mechanisms following the divorce of their parents. The findings expand academic knowledge of the ways in which emerging adults experience parental divorce, and will encourage counselling psychologists working with divorcing couples or with their offspring to remain curious and mindful of the significance of these themes.

When a person experiences a traumatic brain injury (TBI) the lives of those around them, especially spouses and other family members, may be significantly affected. This thesis first presents a systematic critical review of literature on the state of family functioning in families where one member has experienced a TBI. Overall, findings suggested higher rates of family dysfunction in TBI families than in the general population. The presence of neurobehavioural problems in the injured person (also referred to as personality changes) was particularly associated with poorer family functioning. A qualitative study is then presented, exploring how partners of persons with TBI experience and make sense of personality changes. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify themes in the interview transcripts of five female partners of persons with TBI. For four of these women the presence of new negative behaviours and the loss of valued characteristics had contributed to altered perceptions of their partner's identity and of the couple relationship. Their experiences are contrasted with that of one participant who perceived positive changes in her partner whilst considering him to be fundamentally the same. Loss and grief were associated with perception of the partner as different.

This thesis submitted for the degree of doctor of Clinical Psychology comprises of two volumes. Volume I is the research component of the thesis and consists of the literature review, empirical paper and public dissemination document. The literature review examined childhood brain injury and the family, including the impact the family (e.g. functioning) has on a child with a brain injury and vice versa. The empirical paper describes a research project examining how mothers conceptualise their child’s identity following a brain injury. Volume II is the clinical component of the thesis and consists of five clinical practice reports (CPR). The first CPR presents the case of a 13 year old girl with weight management difficulties formulated from a cognitive and systemic perspective. The second CPR describes a small-scale service-related research project, which examined the views of 12 to 18 year olds attending child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). The third CPR is a single case experimental design evaluating a mindfulness-based intervention with a sixty year old man with anxiety and panic attacks. The fourth CPR is a case study of a 33 year old male with risk and challenging behaviour in an inpatient setting. The final CPR is an abstract summarising a presentation of a neuropsychological case study.

Volume I comprises three chapters. The first chapter is a systematic literature review which synthesises and evaluates research exploring the experiences of and impact on family members where a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the family is undergoing an Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI). The second chapter is a qualitative empirical paper investigating sibling and parental experiences of living with a child with ASD. The third chapter is a public domain briefing document, providing an accessible summary of the literature review and empirical paper. These reports have been written in accordance with the guidelines for submission to the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Appendix A). Volume II comprises five Clinical Practice Reports (CPRs). The first report details the case of a ten year old boy who presented with symptoms of anxiety and a fear of being sick. The paper presents this case formulated from a cognitive-behavioural (CBT) and a psychodynamic perspective. The second report presents a small-scale service-related research project, exploring the expectations and experiences of mentoring from the perspective of facilitators who deliver a parenting group. The third report details a case-study of a 35 year old woman with symptoms of depression, formulation from a CBT approach. The fourth report is a single-case experimental design evaluating the effectiveness of a behavioural formulation and intervention for challenging behaviour for a 7 year old girl with a learning disability. The fifth report presents the abstract of an orally presented case study about the use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for a 29 year old lady in recovery from an acute episode of psychosis following the birth of her child.

The mobility of diplomats represents an important facet of today's migration flows. This diplomatic minority has become diverse and numerous as a result of increased international assignments and career mobility becoming a necessity. Notably, diplomatic mobility has been found to have an impact on family arrangements and partner's working life and future plans. However, despite being one of the earliest forms of expatriation, very little is known about the experiences of spouses of diplomats who decided to embark on this journey alongside their husbands. Consequently, this study is interested in giving a voice to this minority and explore their experiences as Wives of Diplomats (WOD) across diplomatic assignments. Data is collected from eight participants using semi-structured interviews and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The findings suggest that despite the fact that each country has its own laws and rights for spouses of diplomats, all participants experience their role as WOD in a similar fashion, explaining that many lose their sense of self and autonomy, especially in the first diplomatic posting. It appears that the strength and connectivity of their marriage allows them to make sense of their experiences by understanding that their presence is essential for the diplomatic posting and that they have the possibility of choosing who they want to be. Implications for psychological practitioners are discussed in terms of their clinical work and their responsibility to advocate for social justice. Suggestions for future research are also discussed.

Secondary writers describing lesser gentry marital practices have usually relied on extrapolation from the procedures of the wealthy gentry but there is no consensus about whether squirearchy practices were a diluted form of metropolitan procedures or diverged from them because of different aims and limited resources. This study examines the marriage-making strategies of Midlands squires. The Midlands is an area far enough from London to escape many metropolitan influences and its rapid economic and industrial expansion may have influenced gentry strategies and relationships. ‘Lesser gentry’ is a term used to describe landowners with relatively small estates and limited resources who were usually inactive in county or national governance. It is an imprecise term because social boundaries were blurred, making them a fluid and porous social group in which status could change. Lesser gentry saw themselves as an integral sub-stratum of the gentry despite differences in wealth and influence. I argue that their marital practices were closer to those of the greater gentry than the wealthier urban merchants and professionals with whom they are often compared and that they experienced similar procedural changes and influences as the greater gentry. This study uses family archives, supplemented with primary material available in published form and contemporary literary material, to provide a different dimension. Literary authors reflected and represented marriage-making practices to challenge traditional behaviours and attitudes. Chapters 1-3 discuss secondary writers’ views about gentry marriage-making, the families sampled and literary materials used. Five chapters consider strategies affecting heirs, provision for younger children, younger sons, daughters and widows. Parental aims differed for different children but included: strengthening estate finances; reducing costs by ‘disposing’ of daughters and ‘setting up’ younger sons; and preventing widows from alienating wealth through remarriage. This thesis shows that the dominant influences in marriage-making were finance and financial provision, although affection and personal choice played an increasingly important role.

The period 1914-1939 ushered in a variety of social, cultural, economic and political changes, and it is possible to see the influences of these within the intimate relationships of the family. To date the historiography of the family in interwar Britain has largely neglected the issue of violence against wives, and so this thesis aims to contribute to this discourse. It will consider the cultures and social structures that both enabled and challenged husbands’ intimate violence in the shadow of the First World War. This thesis will survey the everyday experiences of people within abusive relationships, and explore the understandings of and responses to this issue among the judiciary and magistracy, news media, medical professions, and those groups who sought to reform marriage. Exploring the liminality of violence within the home, this study will show how contemporary evaluations of marital violence were influenced by the common prioritization of marriage and patriarchal authority above the safety of wives and the criminalization of husbands. It will go on to argue that, even as increasing numbers of couples separated and divorced, the legacy of war exacerbated many of the issues that enabled husbands’ violence against wives. It bolstered the link between social stability and traditional gender roles, encouraged the conditions within relationships that contributed to the expression of domestic abuse, and fostered a disinclination to question the morality of violent veteran husbands. It will conclude that without the discursive capacity nor widespread inclination to challenge the social and cultural circumstances that enabled violence against wives, wife battery remained an insufficiently problematized issue throughout the period examined.

Employing a methodological approach informed by sociological social constructionist theories of gender, I endeavour to explore representations of Spartan masculinity in the works of Xenophon Thucydides and Plato, to gain better understanding of portrayals and usages of ideologies of Spartan masculinity in Classical Athenian philosophical and historical works. I structure my project by focusing on seven categories which constructionists believe to be important to the formation of masculinity. My aim is to demonstrate the utility of this methodological framework for exploring historical masculinities and to contend that there is no singular representation of Spartan masculinity within Classical Athenian prose. Rather, representations of Spartan masculinity are complex and multifaceted, with authors constructing and employing different ideologies of Spartan masculinity situationally and for a variety of purposes, both internal and external to the texts. In chapter one, I examine Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution, demonstrating the role of masculine ideals in the “Lycurgan” system and suggesting Xenophon depicts Spartan masculinity as highly competitive and performative in nature. In chapter two, I examine Plato’s Laws and Republic, to demonstrate that Plato portrays Spartan masculine ideals as playing a prominent role in the imbalanced development of Spartan character. I also analyse Plato’s depiction of the auxiliary guardians to suggest that problematic elements he associates with Spartan men are unresolved, even within his idealised polis. In chapter three, I explore Thucydides’ History. I elucidate the role of masculine ideals in characterisations of Spartan individuals and the Spartan polis and argue that characters’ redefinition of Spartan masculine ideals is portrayed as politically useful in the text. Finally, in chapter four, I examine Xenophon’s historical works, focusing primarily on the Hellenica. I explore a number of episodes to demonstrate characters’ employment of masculine ideals for political purposes, to demonstrate correspondences between masculine ideals identified in the Lac. and Xenophon’s characterisations of Spartan individuals in the Hellenica and argue that hegemonic masculinity is observable in depictions of of Spartan societal processes and mechanisms.

Within the South Asian community, the cultural law and behavioural code of conduct followed in order to preserve the perceived family honour is known as Izzat. Much of the literature on Izzat has explored and documented the negative consequences of women challenging Izzat, particularly those who have experienced abuse. The existing literature, however, has rarely explored the act of challenging Izzat itself. This qualitative study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the experiences of six South Asian women who have challenged Izzat. Taking a phenomenological stance, it focused particularly on (a) the participants’ experiences of challenging Izzat and (b) how they made sense of and gave meaning to their experiences. Six one-to-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with women aged between 25 and 30 who identified themselves as British South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi). Three superordinate themes emerged from the data: ‘The Resistance’, ‘The Sense of Peril’ and ‘The Lasting Legacy’. The findings of this study have supported the existing literature and have provided a number of unique insights into the experiences of challenging Izzat. This study found the experience of challenging Izzat to be a complex process, whereby the participants’ encountered both distressing and positive experiences for their actions, and sought, as well as acquired, change and control within their hybrid British South Asian ‘life worlds’. It is hoped that the findings may aid practitioners in developing their understanding of the phenomenon of challenging Izzat and translate the insight gained into therapeutic practice. The implications of the research findings for clinical practice and recommendations for future research have also been discussed.

Research on pain in individuals with intellectual disabilities has largely focused on identification of pain and medical management of pain symptoms. Pain management programmes have not routinely been offered to such individuals. In view of the ample evidence that Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) can be used for chronic pain management including the management of dysmenorrhea in the general population, and the preliminary evidence for its effectiveness in people with intellectual disability (McManus & McGuire, 2014), there is a rationale for evaluating a CBT-based pain management programme for menstrual pain in women with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a theory-based cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) programme for menstrual pain management in young women with intellectual disabilities. The programme was developed from the theory-based programme “Feeling Better” (McManus & McGuire, 2010). The study used a mixed methods design with the intervention delivered in group format, on a weekly basis, to those in the treatment condition. Those in the control condition received treatment as usual. Information was gathered throughout the process on a number of key pain variables including pain management knowledge, pain coping strategies, pain intensity and pain interference. Process evaluation was conducted with key stakeholders to examine which elements of the programme were most relevant in promoting change. Results suggest that participation in the menstrual pain management group had a positive impact in terms of increasing pain management knowledge over time, and increasing the use of wellness-focused coping strategies to manage pain in everyday situations. Findings suggest that a cognitive-behavioural therapy programme can be effectively used to support menstrual pain management amongst young women with intellectual disabilities.