There is a growing body of literature which advocates the psychological benefits of contact with the natural world. The existing literature on therapy in outdoor contexts (Linden and Grut, 2002; Berger, 2006;2007; Berger and McLeod, 2006; Burns, 1998) offers some insight into the practical and therapeutic issues encountered when moving outdoors and ways of working therapeutically in an outdoor natural space. One of the weaknesses of the literature is a limited discussion of how the therapeutic frame is affected by the move outdoors and a thorough discussion of the practice issues encountered when moving outdoors and how these might link to the therapeutic process and relationship.

This thesis is based on the findings from an ethnographic study of young people living in a social housing estate, Hillview, in the South of England conducted between July 2006 and December 2007. It is based on findings generated from a combination of observation data, interviews, focus groups and documentary research. The principle aim of the research was to examine the impact of community safety policies and strategies from the perspective of the young people in this neighbourhood.

This thesis engages with contemporary debates within the social sciences concerning the study of affect and emotion via a reanalysis of qualitative data on deceased organ donation collected in Catalonia (Spain). The practice of transferring organs from a deceased body to a living one is a medical procedure with a long and complex history reviewed in the second chapter. In contemporary Spain, this practice is highly contingent on the outcome of an encounter between healthcare professionals and bereaved families. Hence, the affectivity involved in this situation emerges as a key element in the process of becoming donor kin. This emotional experience is approached from a theoretical perspective in the third chapter, where current debates on the limitations of adopting discursive approaches to emotions and the pertinence of turning to so-called affect theories are reviewed. The benefits of adopting an abductive approach are outlined in chapter four, a.nd in the fifth chapter this theoretical engagement is complemented with, and informs, a close reading of the themes and metaphors emerging from the data (originating from interviews, focus group and ethnographic observations). As a result, this thesis suggests that the concept of liminality facilitates the articulation of a genuinely process-oriented approach, capable of integrating the affective and discursive aspects of emotional experience, and linking the ontological and empirical dimensions of social research. It is argued that a so-called sentimental structure privileging altruistic behavior circulates across the Catalan population's social imaginaries, potentially endorsing the status of donor kin. However, alternative metaphors used to describe this process, such as sacrifice or tragedy, reveal this position will be actualised only as long as the liminal conditions of the particular encounter are correctly navigated. Thus, the process of becoming donor kin as a rite of passage, summoning up the mutual reinforcement of tendencies towards its optimisation and continuous attempts to escape it, is described in the sixth chapter. How these dynamics expand beyond the actual encounter is explored in detail in chapter seven, to document how the encounter is not only shaped by broader societal frameworks but has the potential to change them. The thesis concludes by reflecting back on the benefits and pitfalls of the unorthodox methodological procedure employed, arguing for an extension of the notion of liminality to the study of similar affect-laden experiences and stressing the value of the caring practices provided by transplant coordinators toward an art of dying.

Currently, there is considerable debate over the role graduates play in influencing the economic and social characteristics and trajectories of towns and cities. Some commentators argue that a larger graduate population will increase the levels of entrepreneurship, innovation and start-up businesses in a town or city, and support a cultural and social infrastructure that will attract other wealthier migrants. Indeed, increasing the number of graduates in a town or city is often seen as an important policy mechanism through which a region can retain people with innovative, entrepreneurial and management capabilities. Yet, to date there have been few studies that examine the reasons why some graduates stay put while others move on after finishing university. Existing studies tend to focus on the contribution of graduates to local and regional economic growth and human capital. At the same time, research into the migration patterns of young people highlights the importance of situating migration within a wider youth transition process shaped by cultural and social influences: a point missed in most studies of graduate mobility.

This study argues in favour of creating a new paradigm around gender transition that goes beyond politically distinctive ‘label identities’ and aims to include individuals who seem to lack a clear ‘destination’ within definitions of ‘gender transition’. Contrary to sociological models that have constructed understandings of gender transition via separate categories into which individuals may be grouped, this study argues that those assigned to the categories of ‘gender oscillators’ and ‘gender migrators’ –or ‘cross-dressers’ and ‘transsexuals’- do not necessarily constitute members of different groups. The thesis draws on a detailed discursive analysis of interactions within focus group discussions and critically engages with the notions of recognition and monstrosity as these apply to trans-gender theorising. Thirteen male-to-female individuals who self-identified as embodying various expressions of gender transition agreed to take part in three independent focus groups that explored participants’ understanding of transition. An interdisciplinary methodological approach was adopted, this drawing upon the principles of discourse analysis to reveal how subject positions are formed within the gender-crossing discourse. Gender crossing tales were collected and analysed as a means of interaction and were set within the framework of myth and legend which had sought to explain human existence and possibilities of viable gendered personhood over the millennia. The use of metaphors was critically examined, particularly those which describe gender transition as a path which leads to a sought-after ‘home’; a place where an individual expects and hopes to find recognition as their ‘true’ female self. This study argues that the various classifications of trans-gender expressions are products of the given sociocultural matrix that regulates recognition within relations of power. It also argues that those assigned to different categories actually share individual expressions of similar embodied feelings, namely the wish to be accepted as females, and that their journey ‘home’ is mobilised by a defence against the fear that the loss of the desired subject position will defeat one’s capacity to have hope about anything. In an effort to introduce an alternative, value-free approach to the more-conventional clinical and politicised attempts to describe and classify individuals who cross the gender norm, this study suggests an account of the metaphorical positioning of the trans-gender self which aims to build connections across various understandings of non-normative gendered bodies and offer new forms of identity and agency which may make the lives of all individuals who gender-cross more liveable.

This thesis offers a critical exploration of the leisure uses of cemeteries and the relationship between people and places in burial grounds. It interrogates the concepts of heterotopia, purple recreation, enchantment and dark tourism and uses the graveyard to extend their descriptive and analytic utility. Extant cemetery research focuses overwhelmingly on their historical role and the relationships between mourners and the grave, with only passing reference to recreational uses. Using the techniques of heuristic inquiry the study considers the cemetery as a greenspace for leisure by exploring the ways in which both researcher and participants perceive, experience and use these 'dead' spaces. Data was gathered from twenty-two semi-structured interviews and conversations with thirty participants and through 550 hours of participant observation. This was complemented by data collected from both site erosion and material trace accretion, for example, paths worn in the grass, smoothed tree branches, litter and graffiti. The application of garbology, or the study of rubbish and other material traces, to a cemetery site augments current practice in heuristic inquiry methodology, building on techniques developed in a variety of other settings. This thesis also enhances current knowledge of people-place bonds, socio-spatial theory and temporality. It scrutinises the conflation of different species of time in the graveyard and the impact this has on sense of place. Conceptual contributions are made by linking deathscapes with the three emergent themes of purple recreation, enchantment and dark tourism. Woven through these three themes is the concept of heterotopia which is critically examined with reference to cemeteries and the distinctive people-place bond formed between these sites and their recreational visitors. This thesis concludes that cemeteries offer a unique space for leisure and argues that the sense of place experienced in the cemetery engages the visitor in deep and meaningful ways that have previously been underestimated.

In recent years teenage pregnancy and parenthood have been topics of much debate within academia, government and the media in the UK. The contemporary problematisation of teenage parenthood has meant that young mothers have been the subject of a number of recent policy interventions. This thesis examines the issues which confront young mothers in the context of these social policy interventions. It provides an overview of the literature debating the conceptualisation of teenage pregnancy and parenthood as a significant social problem. In addition, it traces the development of policies aimed at reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy and supporting teenage parents. The thesis involves a qualitative study of young parents and their responses to these problematising discourses and the policies they have stimulated. Qualitative research methods are used to examine key 'decisions' and 'choices' made by young women as they 'become' mothers. Participant observation was conducted in three young parent support groups in the South East of England. This was followed up with a range of interviews and focus groups to elicit a deeper understanding of motives and influences behind key 'decisions' made by young parents. The discussion of 'decisions' are divided into three areas. Firstly, contraceptive and reproductive 'decision-making'; secondly, the 'decision' to continue with a pregnancy; and, thirdly, 'decisions' relating to relationships, education and employment made by the women once they have 'become' mothers. This allows a sense of the women's 'paths' to 'becoming' mothers to emerge. This thesis adds to the emerging debate which challenges the contemporary problematisation of teenage pregnancy and parenthood in media and policy discourses. The focus on young women's 'decisions' provides a unique approach to examining the experiences of teenage parents in relation to policy. Consequently this enables a valuable insight to emerge of the ways in which social policy is experienced by those it is designed to support. Frameworks of gender and constructions of 'good' motherhood are employed to understand how the women engage, resist and manage social policies aimed at shaping their behaviour. As such, some assessment can be made of the 'successes' and 'failures' of policy approaches to teenage pregnancy and parenthood.

The publications and critical commentary constitute a body of work spanning the period from 1988 to 2012. This has seen: the professionalisation of the field of counselling and psychotherapy, the development of a wide range of approaches; and an exponential growth of training programmes associated with these changes. The thesis constitutes the response of a systemic psychotherapist and academic engaging with the expanding formal knowledge of the field as it informs intervention with clients and the training of practitioners. This is to be understood as an extended exercise of praxis in the dialectical application of theory to challenges encountered in practice. From this a number of themes have emerged which have made an original contribution to the knowledge base of the subject area. These are: the development of a model for working with process; the application of systemic approaches to intervention with individuals; crosscultural work; a critical response to the ‘post-modern turn’; and a cross-modality approach to training. This response to an unfolding epistemological context opens the way to establishing a cross-modality position; one that argues for a ‘respectful co-existence’ which is appreciative of differences between theories and models but cautious in the face of claims to orthodoxy and supremacy.

Studentification is increasingly recognised as a leading-edge process of contemporary urban change; identified in over fifty university towns and cities across the UK. Adopting a micro-geographic approach, this thesis investigates the unfolding processes and impacts of studentification in five case study locations within Brighton and Hove City, UK, and intersects with debates of gentrification, segregation, community cohesion, and ‘otherness’.

This research aims to identify any patterns in participants’ biographical narratives that might enable therapy to be more effectively directed to help with the growing challenge of obesity. Existing approaches to obesity treatment have largely focused on weight loss (and maintenance) as a discrete problem, isolated from the individual’s wider psychological condition and from their individual history, and there has been some suggestion in the literature that many patients feel that this approach fails to address ‘deeper’ problems influencing their eating and lifestyle behaviours.