Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Geography. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-129). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ66394.

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This study focused on youths’ experience of receiving school-based mental health services and community-based mental health services. This qualitative study utilized a sample of eight girls and boys, ages 15-17 years old, who attended school within the district of Timmins. Data was collected using individual interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results of the study revealed benefits to services, limitations to services, and some recommendations for changes to services. This research helped to explain what the participants, who have had experiences with mental health services, thought about the services they have had; it also provided some recommendations the participants made for changes to the mental health services based on their experiences. The conclusion of this study involved a connection between this study and social work practice, and offered suggestions for future research in the field of children’s mental health services.

The present study examined psychosocial variables as predictors of psychological distress and well-being in gay men with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The psychosocial variables investigated included communal and agentic personality variables, social support, as well as social hindrance, and self-determination variables. The total sample comprised 126 gay men. Forty-eight were seropositive for the HIV infection, 40 received a diagnosis of AIDS, and 38 were seronegative for the HIV infection. The participants with HIV and AIDS were recruited from Immunodeficiency clinics and the HIV$-$ participants were friends and acquaintances of the HIV+ and AIDS participants. The three groups of participants completed questionnaires assessing stable personality traits such as dependency and self-criticism, intimacy, affiliation, achievement, and power strivings, perceived and received social support, social hindrance of personal strivings, and levels of self-determination such as introjective and identified striving motivation. / Multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to assess the predictive utility of each independent variable in predicting psychological distress and well-being. Perceived social support, striving intimacy, and striving achievement were found to be negatively associated with distress and positively associated with well-being across the three groups. Dependency, self-criticism, social hindrance, social hindrance of striving power, and introjective striving motivation were positively associated with distress and negatively with well-being. When all significant independent variables were entered in a regression analysis and simultaneously predicted the outcome variables, perceived social support, self-criticism and social hindrance of strivings significantly predicted psychological distress, and perceived social support, self-criticism, identified and introjective striving motivation predicted psychological well-being. Several independent variables were stronger predictors of distress in the HIV+ group than in the AIDS group: striving power, social hindrance of striving power, dependency, and perceived social support. Results suggest that the HIV+ group is distinct psychologically from the AIDS group. The self-concept theory and the cognitive adaptation theory were discussed in order to explain these group differences. The findings of the present study highlight the important impact psychosocial variables can have on the psychological adjustment of gay men with HIV and AIDS.

Photocopy of typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1979. / Bibliography: leaves 578-620. / Microfiche. / xiv, 620 leaves ill. 29 cm

This study explores the teaching role of activists and community advocates who have become involved in the education and preparation of mental health professionals. Placed in the transcultural mental health context, the study aims to identify central features of the 'teaching role' of consumer and carer advocates as they have become employed via participatory strategies and employment scenarios within mainstream teaching programs and transcultural mental health centres. / The research approach used for this exploration is based on hermeneutics and ethnography, where I visit organisations and individual advocates on a participant- observation basis. This approach locates my researcher role as a central reflexive author in generating and interpreting data from experiences of organisational teaching practice, from conversing with advocates and clinical educators and from collecting and reading consumer and carer perspectives on reform in mental health care. Making interpretations from these social experiences means that I make selective use of relevant autobiographical details and knowledge from my employment in the mental health sector. / The central theme of the study is how consumer and carer advocates teach via the notion of lived experience, a key expression of recent workforce development policy in Australian mental health. The research outcomes from this focus indicate that the teaching work of advocates in contributing authoritative knowledge of self and others is influenced by many factors intrinsic to their performed representative role, rather than exclusively by their personal experience as a consumer or carer, as the policy of lived experience would suggest. I argue that the requirements of teaching as defined by the expectations of employing organisations and the clinical audience, and by traditions in representative advocacy and professional education all shape the way in which advocates build and express their knowledge in educational work. / From this broad interpretation, the study also argues that organisations in mental health need to carefully think about the way they construct teaching positions for community advocates and support their work. Performance expectations of representing others, being able to portray cultural understandings, effectively educating clinicians, utilising their personal stories and histories, and meeting other employment related tasks place diverse and possibly contradictory pressures on the consumer or carer wishing to express their perspective to the workers in the sector. / The study's major emphasis on the role requirements of advocate/ teachers and organisational expectations is then connected to a broader conversation about how (consumer) participation models are able to facilitate and support the involvement of community and identity groups not traditionally associated with the consumer movement. This focuses attention on how existing consumer models are bound to the language of consumerism and mental illness. The implications of these boundaries for realizing the ideals of participation in mental health are then discussed. This helps to contextualise the idea of whether the mental health sector is in a position to facilitate a democratic recognition of the service needs of different community groups. / Thesis (PhDNursing)--University of South Australia, 2005

This study explores the teaching role of activists and community advocates who have become involved in the education and preparation of mental health professionals. Placed in the transcultural mental health context, the study aims to identify central features of the 'teaching role' of consumer and carer advocates as they have become employed via participatory strategies and employment scenarios within mainstream teaching programs and transcultural mental health centres. / The research approach used for this exploration is based on hermeneutics and ethnography, where I visit organisations and individual advocates on a participant- observation basis. This approach locates my researcher role as a central reflexive author in generating and interpreting data from experiences of organisational teaching practice, from conversing with advocates and clinical educators and from collecting and reading consumer and carer perspectives on reform in mental health care. Making interpretations from these social experiences means that I make selective use of relevant autobiographical details and knowledge from my employment in the mental health sector. / The central theme of the study is how consumer and carer advocates teach via the notion of lived experience, a key expression of recent workforce development policy in Australian mental health. The research outcomes from this focus indicate that the teaching work of advocates in contributing authoritative knowledge of self and others is influenced by many factors intrinsic to their performed representative role, rather than exclusively by their personal experience as a consumer or carer, as the policy of lived experience would suggest. I argue that the requirements of teaching as defined by the expectations of employing organisations and the clinical audience, and by traditions in representative advocacy and professional education all shape the way in which advocates build and express their knowledge in educational work. / From this broad interpretation, the study also argues that organisations in mental health need to carefully think about the way they construct teaching positions for community advocates and support their work. Performance expectations of representing others, being able to portray cultural understandings, effectively educating clinicians, utilising their personal stories and histories, and meeting other employment related tasks place diverse and possibly contradictory pressures on the consumer or carer wishing to express their perspective to the workers in the sector. / The study's major emphasis on the role requirements of advocate/ teachers and organisational expectations is then connected to a broader conversation about how (consumer) participation models are able to facilitate and support the involvement of community and identity groups not traditionally associated with the consumer movement. This focuses attention on how existing consumer models are bound to the language of consumerism and mental illness. The implications of these boundaries for realizing the ideals of participation in mental health are then discussed. This helps to contextualise the idea of whether the mental health sector is in a position to facilitate a democratic recognition of the service needs of different community groups. / Thesis (PhDNursing)--University of South Australia, 2005

This ethnographic study explores the teaching role of activists and community advocates who have become involved in the education and preparation of mental health professionals. Placed in the transcultural mental health context, the study aims to identify central features of the ?teaching role? of consumer and carer advocates as they have become employed via participatory strategies and employment scenarios within mainstream teaching programs and transcultural mental health centres. The central theme of the study is how consumer and carer advocates teach via the notion of lived experience, a key expression of recent workforce development policy in Australian mental health. The research outcomes from this focus indicate that the teaching work of advocates in contributing authoritative knowledge of self and others is influenced by many factors intrinsic to their performed representative role, rather than exclusively by their personal experience as a consumer or carer, as the policy of lived experience would suggest. I argue that the requirements of teaching as defined by the expectations of employing organisations and the clinical audience, and by traditions in representative advocacy and professional education all shape the way in which advocates build and express their knowledge in educational work.

This study explores the teaching role of activists and community advocates who have become involved in the education and preparation of mental health professionals. Placed in the transcultural mental health context, the study aims to identify central features of the 'teaching role' of consumer and carer advocates as they have become employed via participatory strategies and employment scenarios within mainstream teaching programs and transcultural mental health centres. / The research approach used for this exploration is based on hermeneutics and ethnography, where I visit organisations and individual advocates on a participant- observation basis. This approach locates my researcher role as a central reflexive author in generating and interpreting data from experiences of organisational teaching practice, from conversing with advocates and clinical educators and from collecting and reading consumer and carer perspectives on reform in mental health care. Making interpretations from these social experiences means that I make selective use of relevant autobiographical details and knowledge from my employment in the mental health sector. / The central theme of the study is how consumer and carer advocates teach via the notion of lived experience, a key expression of recent workforce development policy in Australian mental health. The research outcomes from this focus indicate that the teaching work of advocates in contributing authoritative knowledge of self and others is influenced by many factors intrinsic to their performed representative role, rather than exclusively by their personal experience as a consumer or carer, as the policy of lived experience would suggest. I argue that the requirements of teaching as defined by the expectations of employing organisations and the clinical audience, and by traditions in representative advocacy and professional education all shape the way in which advocates build and express their knowledge in educational work. / From this broad interpretation, the study also argues that organisations in mental health need to carefully think about the way they construct teaching positions for community advocates and support their work. Performance expectations of representing others, being able to portray cultural understandings, effectively educating clinicians, utilising their personal stories and histories, and meeting other employment related tasks place diverse and possibly contradictory pressures on the consumer or carer wishing to express their perspective to the workers in the sector. / The study's major emphasis on the role requirements of advocate/ teachers and organisational expectations is then connected to a broader conversation about how (consumer) participation models are able to facilitate and support the involvement of community and identity groups not traditionally associated with the consumer movement. This focuses attention on how existing consumer models are bound to the language of consumerism and mental illness. The implications of these boundaries for realizing the ideals of participation in mental health are then discussed. This helps to contextualise the idea of whether the mental health sector is in a position to facilitate a democratic recognition of the service needs of different community groups. / Thesis (PhDNursing)--University of South Australia, 2005

In this research I analyse how mental health problems are perceived in two primary Islamic texts: the Qur?an (the holy book for Muslims and the Hadith (the sayings and traditions of Prophet Muhammad). I then integrate this analysis with the perceptions of a cohort of Jordanian Muslims about their mental health problems and treatment. Two important theoretical frameworks underpin this research, namely the post-colonial theorizing of scholars such as Edward Said, Franz Fanon, and Homi Bhabha, and the Explanatory Model of Arthur Kleinman. Research on the assessment and treatment of mental illness in Islamic and Arabic culture is limited. What literature does exist, suggests that in spite of the increase in research on cultural issues related to mental health, there is a strong need for further research to explore the nexus between culture, religion and mental health diagnosis and treatment in non-western cultures, in order to advance cultural sensitivity amongst mental health professions. This research fills this lacuna in mental health scholarship about the mental health awareness and experiences of Muslims. All of the interviews were conducted at the Mental Health Centre in Jordan, where twenty male and female participants were selected and then interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The textual analysis commenced while I was in Jordan but was completed on my return to Australia. The data were analysed using both NVivo software and manual coding. The results of this analysis are organized around the two main themes that emerged those of `Causation ’ and `Help-seeking ’. Sub-themes to each of these primary themes provide a comprehensive picture of the understanding and behavior of Muslim people accessing assistance from a mental health clinic, and contribute to understanding of mental health issues related to Islam and to Muslims living in Jordan. The research identifies that religion and religious belief are absolutely central to the way that this cohort of Muslim participants interpret the cause and development of their mental health problems and, further, it posits that this is due in part to the explanations of causation and coping contained in primary Muslim texts.