The purpose of this thesis is to examine the various definitional strategies involved in and underlying the use of the term ‘masculinity’ in social science literature, with a particular emphasis on psychodynamic literature, and to propose an additional approach (via the metaphor of the ‘lens’ (borrowed from Bem, 1993)) to understanding masculinity as ideology in Althusser’s (1971; 1984) sense of a discourse or narrative which establishes subjectivity and identity. It suggests that masculinity could be usefully viewed as a certain type of discourse which attempts to exercise a hegemony over a more variegated and nuanced personality for the purpose of the attachment of the individual (usually male) to larger social structures and relations, in this case, to the gendered social relations of patriarchy. The idea for the thesis arose out of the writer’s dissatisfaction with current definitional strategies of masculinity employed in social science research and his perceived need to provide a more complex definition of the term ‘masculinity’, which would highlight its meaning for individual men whilst simultaneously placing that meaning in the wider meaning-generating structures of Western culture. It also arose from a growing frustration with all sections of the so-called men’s movement’s attempts to delineate a type of ‘masculinity’ which is respectful of the rights and needs of women and children. Finally, it particularly arose out of the researcher’s own interest to explore the nature of identity narratives within contemporary Western culture. Chapter One explores these problems and provides key definitions of the important terms of the thesis, including the neological verb, ‘to hegemise,’ by which I refer to the process of attempting, but never entirely successfully, to establish hegemony. It also deals with other definitional questions such as the definition of patriarchy against the suggestion of the existence of multiple patriarchies (Petersen, 1998). The thesis is organised broadly into two sections. The first section, contained in Chapters One through Four, deals with what I have labelled (following suggestions by de Certeau, 1984) current “definitional strategies” employed in discussions of masculinity in the social sciences, with Chapters One and Two providing an overview of these strategies, whilst Chapters Three and Four take three of the six strategies identified and examines them in depth through their exemplary use in key literature from three psychodynamic schools of thought. These definitional strategies are, firstly, the three which are not explored in depth: 1) the simple reduction of masculinity to any male behaviour (which I believe is very rarely employed), 2) the argument from statistics (so that whatever men can be demonstrated to do, have, think, and so on, more often than women becomes an example of masculinity), and 3) the argument from key exemplars, (such as John Wayne), real or imaginary (again, such as John Wayne). Secondly, the three definitional strategies which are chosen for more extended treatment, 1) the strategy of definition by deferral to other, equally problematic terms (as in the works of Freud, discussed in Chapter Two), 2) the use of the process or results of presumed male child development (the views of the object relations psychodynamic theory as delineated by Nancy Chodorow, and to a lesser extent, Dorothy Dinnerstein, discussed in Chapter Three), and 3) reliance on common understandings (Jung, also discussed in Chapter Three). This last strategy is a kind of definition by default, in that the writer fails to provide a definition, assuming a common cultural background with the reader (and seems to be a very common strategy). It is my argument, reinforced by a detailed examination of certain key relevant texts, selected for both their influence and timeliness in the social sciences, that the use of any of these strategies inevitably involves the writer or researcher in contradiction and confusion. As this entire thesis is about the definitional strategies employed when using the term, ‘masculinity,’ no specific definition is provided of masculinity in the opening chapters of the thesis. However, due attention is paid in Chapter Two to Connell’s (1987; 1995) notion that there are actually ‘multiple masculinities,’ a definitional strategy, I argue, not without its own confusions. Within Connell’s understanding of masculinity, this thesis focuses only on notions of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. The final five chapters of the thesis sketch a further approach to masculinity on the basis of considering masculinity as a specific type of identity narrative. Chapters Five, Six and Seven provide the grounding for such a consideration through an examination of the nature of identity narratives generally, and Chapters Eight and Nine apply this grounding specifically to masculinity, and, in the case of Chapter Nine, to research about men. Chapter Five delineates the key term ‘identity’, and separates it from the concept of the ‘self’, a term with which it is often, but not always, conflated, whilst comparing both terms, ‘self’ and ‘identity’, on the one hand to the Foucauldian idea of subjectivity and on the other hand, to the Freudian and Lacanian notion of the ego. Chapter Five argues that identity can be meaningfully separated from the self by two markers, 1) its basically moral nature, which in turn 2) arises out of its association with social structures and social discourses. Although no argument is made either for a singular self or a “true” self, it is argued that the human experience of the self and the identity is that they are often in conflict, and the ‘self’ is often experienced as being an unsuccessful copy or diminished form of the identity (or identities). This experience signals what I have called ‘the Ambassadorial function’ of the identity; that is, its ability to represent and commend, as well as prescribe and command, cultural norms and expectations for an individual’s personality to the self. Chapter Five suggests that whilst the number of selves in a particular culture may be close to infinite (in that one body may contain many selves), the number of identities prescribed by a given culture which uses identity narratives may be multiple, but quite finite. Chapters Six and Seven explore the human attraction, at least in modernist Western cultures, to identity narratives, and suggests that their current cultural importance arises out of both personal need and social compulsion. In order to establish personal motivations for the adoption of the identity, Chapter Six takes a necessary detour through conceptions of agency as they appear in the work of Anthony Giddens (1979; 1984), Rom Harre and his associates (particularly in Harre’s discussion of ‘positioning theory’, Harre and van Langenhove, 1999a) and in the recent work of Judith Butler (1997). Each of these asserts the possibility of human agency against some post-modernist interpretations of Foucault, Althusser, and others which suggest agency is entirely an artefact of discourse (an interpretation denied by Foucault himself (Foucault, 1994/2000, p. 399)). Although I do not believe any of these accounts provide a particularly satisfying notion of agency, they do make it plausible to consider the possibility that identities take on their compelling nature because they provide an answer to individual concerns, as well as the role they play in the construction of human subjectivity, and of course, it can also be argued that some of these individual concerns are themselves created by social subjectivities. Chapter Seven examines this collusion of interest which occurs in modernist Western cultures which promote the adoption of identity narratives. Based on theoretical work by Otto Rank (1936a; 1936b), Ernst Becker (1962/1977), Theresa Brennan (1993; 2000), as well as on research by Theweleit (1977/1987; 1978/1989) and Foxhall (1994; 1995), it suggests that identities serve to protect a person from overwhelming fears of mortality, change and the flow of life (see also Goodchild, 1996). As a result of these fears, an individual is primed to adopt narratives which attach them to larger, less changeable social wholes, whether these narratives are of a collective religious nature, or whether, as in the case of modernist culture, they are identities. These fears can then be exploited to instil identities which serve wider, and not necessarily equitous, social purposes. Chapter Seven concludes, however, that such a project is always unsuccessful, for as Butler (1993, p. 2) states, ‘Bodies never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled.’ No strategy, however clever, can solidify the processes of flow. Chapter Eight presents the case for considering masculinity as a type of identity narrative, which, because of its relationship to biological sex and gender, reflects the social relationships between the genders in modernist cultures (the assumption that there are only two genders acknowledges a cultural belief, and not the writer’s own assumptions about gender). It suggests that it makes sense to think of masculinity as an identity discourse to which both men and women are initiated as they come to understand the specific speaking conditions under which this discourse must be appropriated (these occur more often for men than for women). It further proposes limiting the use of the term masculinity to those societies which have two necessary pre-conditions; 1) they rely on identity narratives generally, and 2) they are patriarchal. It argues that many societies which are/have been patriarchal do not/did not have a concept of masculinity, and men exercised their privilege over women and children through other forms, such as in the social roles they played. (For example, Connell, 1993, p. 604, cites classical China as having a patriarchal, yet non-identity based culture.) Chapter Eight argues that to refer to men’s conceptions of masculinity in these societies is to import an anachronistic term into discussions of those societies’ conceptions of manhood. Chapter Eight further suggests that the “speaking conditions” for the employment of masculinity must be learned by the members of a culture, and that men’s everyday behaviour is often non-masculine; in fact, I suggest it is usually non-masculine unless the male is made aware that the situation requires the production of the masculine identity narrative. Following suggestions from narrative therapy (for example, Jenkins, 1990; 1996; White, 1991; 1992; C. White and Denborough, 1998), I believe greater hope for promoting equity towards women and children and respect for diversity amongst men can be achieved by focusing on those occasions when a male is not “speaking” masculinity than for reform of masculinity, which in my view, remains locked into its relationship to patriarchal social relations. In this sense, I present further arguments which I believe buttress the case already made by MacInnes (1998) that the abolition of the masculine identity narrative totally (and perhaps gender narratives generally) is more desirable than the reform of masculinity. Chapter Nine briefly illustrates the application of this approach to researching masculinity through the understandings of the development of the masculine identity narrative generated by two male focus groups using the ‘memory work’ methodology pioneered by Frigga Haug (1987; 1992a) and extended by June Crawford and others (1992). In all, this thesis contributes to the current debate on the nature of masculinity by seriously considering the implications of the links masculinity provides to patriarchal social relationships as an identity narrative. The specificity of these links, as well as their deeper functioning within human life have, to date, been largely unexplored in the literature on men. The thesis explores these links through the use of some of the literature which first brought the problems identities seek to resolve to academic and therapeutic attention (such as the work of Rank and Becker). Further, in proposing an approach to masculinity limited by cultural constraints (that is, patriarchy and the general presence of identity narratives), the thesis facilitates a potential shift in the literature from approaching masculinity via one of the definitional strategies to a more focused definition, which allows one to delineate when a man is being masculine and when a man is not being masculine. As such, this allows for a re-emergence and perhaps a re-appreciation of the diversity and multiplicity that lies not only between individuals, but also within each individual’s life and experiences.

The existential dimension has gained importance in health studies in the last decades (Moreira-Almeida & Koenig, 2006; DeMarinis, 2008). Little Swedish research exists in this area. A pilot study was conducted in a suburban Stockholm, Church of Sweden parish. Research question was: “How does the existential dimension of health, understood as the ability to create and maintain a functional meaning-makings system, affect the person’s self-rated health and quality of life?” Theoretical framework included: health research focusing the existential dimension; public health through psychology of religion; and, object-relations theory. The mixed-methods format included semi-structured interviews, and surveys: 1) on meaning-making, and 2) Swedish pilot translation of WHOQOL-SRPB (self-rated health and quality of life including spirituality, religiousness and personal beliefs). Central results showed a positive relation between the existential health dimension and: overall ratings of physical, mental, social, and environmental health (p = .008); the overall existential health dimension and mental health (p = .008); and, social health (p = .046) and, the combined health items “How do you feel?” and “How satisfied are you with your health?” (p = .001). These results find support in WHO’s health perspective, and are linked to DeMarinis’ health dimensions and Winnicott’s understanding of potential space. Health dimensions: physical, mental, social, ecological and existential, are closely interlinked. The existential dimension is important through interaction with the others, and through its function as an autonomous health dimension. The study underlines the need for – and offers a culturally-tested method and model to explore existential needs in this secularized context.

This work aims to explore the phenomenon of play in detail and classify its relationship to artistic activity and education. As its starting point it uses the paradigm of general and developmental psychology with an emphasis on the formal and functional definition of the term play. This theoretical background will then be widened by- and confronted with the viewpoint of the depth psychology. The theories of the depth psychology will explain the connotations between the play, personality, imagination, and creativity more in depth. The main sources of this work will then be the works of the main representatives of the object relations theory. Due to their focus on early personality development they will help with uncovering where, when and which phenomena connected to artistic activity take place and their influence on human mentality. In this work's conclusion, based on the theories of the general and depth psychology, the foundations for didactic strategies of art education and art psychologists will be proposed, which arise from these theories. These foundations will, finally, be confronted with specialist literature about current approaches to arts education.

¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ is one of the earliest published works of Eileen Chang. However, the autobiographic fiction which focuses its topic on ¡§looking for Father¡¨ has not been valued by the academic circle for a long time. In fact, ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ is the center text(centext) among Eileen Chang¡¦s works. She semioticizes this work according to its plot and then makes these elements metaphors of her later works. This is the key to discussions about the hypertextuality between the texts of Eileen Chang and the phenomenonal world. By using a new approach of criticism called ¡§the School of Super Searching,¡¨ this discourse attempts to blend the research achievements of modern anthropology, psychology and folkloristics into traditional searching, to do gender studies by searching ¡§psychological facts,¡¨ and to focus on the intertextuality between the plot of the fiction and the folk data. By means of the motive tied with folktales and folk customs, and of the related significant notions like misogyny, twins complex, endogamy desire, liminality and initiation rite, divine king and scapegoat, and individuation process, with a close reading on the text of ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea,¡¨ this discourse explores how the pieces of symbolism and meaning in the text associate with the life experiences of Eileen Chang.The issues dealt by this discourse are as follows: 1. Lead a large amount of anthropological concepts into literary criticism, and make intertextual comparison between ethnography and literary works. 2. Clarify the countervailing process between masculinity and femininity in ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ by means of the connotative plot structures of the fairy tales, ¡§Iron John¡¨ and ¡§Little Red Riding-Hood,¡¨ in the text. Men gradually construct masculinity by adopting male violence in order to get rid of maternal swallowing and paternal castration. 3. The practical operatoins of Jung¡¦s theory in literary criticism: (1) Twins complex is an important complex to present the relationship between ego and Anima/Animus. (2) Synchronicity and the possibility of predictive text(predictext). (3) Clarification on the relationship between ¡§sukuu¡¨ and the self. (4) Application of the participation mystique on the narrative point of view. 4. Apollo¡¦s Neuroses- Reinterpretation of the implication for the incest by Oedipus in the texts of Eileen Chang. 5. There exists an association between fowls as the symbol of twins complex and Eileen Chang¡¦s family. 6. The riddle about Eileen Chang in her late years is an individuation process from putting on the wolf¡¦s skin to taking it off. 7. The comparison between the autobiographic works, ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ and Little Reunion.

The aim of this study is to give an in-depth understanding of the representations of a depressed woman who killed her baby. The representations under study is based on “The motherhood constellation” by Stern (1995) and focus on the woman’s representation of her mother as mother-of-herself-as-child, herself-as-mother and her representations of her children. Pregnancy is an important phase in a woman’s life. Parent-infant psychotherapies are a rapidly growing field of infant mental health as many psychological problems have their roots in infancy. Neglect, trauma and abuse and prolonged maternal depression can cause a child to develop a range of problems. The work of Winnicott (1965a) and Bion (1988) put the mother’s fantasy life about her infant as one of the major building blocks of the infant’s construction of a sense of identity (Stern, 1995). Fraiberg (Fraiberg, Adelson&Shapiro, 1980) with her “ghosts in the nursery” revolutionised this perception by placing the maternal representation at the core of the parent-infant clinical situation (Stern, 1995). The way the research developed and the nature of the research problem necessitated a pure qualitative mode of enquiry. A single case study was done about the representations (of self-as-mother, mother-as –mother–of–self-as-child- and of the children) in an extreme case where the mother’s depression led to her murdering her baby. Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews and documents from the psychiatric hospitals she attended. Data was also obtained from field notes, before and after the interviews and also while transcribing the audio-taped interviews. Data analysis was done by the procedures of data reduction and organising it into categories on the basis of themes as described by Neuman (2000). Coding and analytic memo writing were done. The relationships between concepts were examined and linked to each other and interweaved into theoretical statements. The researcher argues that not enough is done to enhance the relationship between a mother and her foetus, and later her baby. The concept of maternal representations is the only approach that opens the possibility to start working at the earliest point of prevention, because intervention can start during pregnancy. Intervention during pregnancy is ideal because defence mechanisms are less rigid during pregnancy and women are more in touch with their entire life cycle and the whole system is more open for change. The ghosts can be chased out of the nursery by helping the mother to see the repetition of the past in the present. The affective link, recognising and remembering the feelings help a parent not to repeat the past in the present - “…it is the parent who cannot remember his childhood feelings of pain and anxiety who will need to inflict his pain upon his child” (Fraiberg, Adelson&Shapiro, 1980, p. 182). / Thesis (PhD (Psychotherapy))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Psychology / unrestricted

This study explored the lived experience of traumatisation manifesting as enduring undiagnosed post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the overall psychological functioning of members currently serving in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) from an object-relations perspective. A qualitative approach with a phenomenological study design using semi-structured interviews and self- report questionnaires to gather data was employed. Prominent themes formed the content for interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) from an object-relations perspective on pathology in relation to untreated trauma of the psyche. The findings indicated that servicemen and women in the SANDF lived in a chronic state of psychic, occupational and relational disintegration. Recurrence of reactivated past unresolved traumas experienced in dreams, troubled sleep and internal conflict were characterised by annihilation anxiety, psychic numbing and repression. Further, there was a chronic sense of loss of the self through loss of good internal and external self-objects as well as in meaning of life and work as a soldier. The findings further revealed overall functional paralysis as evidenced in these SANDF members’continued psychological deterioration, which manifested in irreversible damage to character and cognitive deficits linked to chronic trauma in the form of undiagnosed PTSD. / Thesis (PhD (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Psychology / PhD (Psychology) / Unrestricted

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This dissertation reports on the lived experiences of four child psychiatric nurses. The territory of child psychiatric nursing is explored in this investigation through the punctuation of many voices within this field of study. The methodology of the investigation is descriptive phenomenology and Colaizzis’ steps in descriptive phenomenology (map) are used to discover and describe the different template theories (the territory) that are unique to each of the four child psychiatric nurses who were interviewed. Following this, a story is punctuated, which is referred to as the structural synthesis. It is the heartbeat of the investigation. The dissertation concludes by reflecting on the paradox of how the invisibility of the child psychiatric nurses allowed for the visibility of the dissertation and encourages the reader to ask pivotal questions about the important role of the child psychiatric nurse, working as part of a multidisciplinary team, in order to improve patient care. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical psychology)

This dissertation reports on the lived experiences of four child psychiatric nurses. The territory of child psychiatric nursing is explored in this investigation through the punctuation of many voices within this field of study. The methodology of the investigation is descriptive phenomenology and Colaizzis’ steps in descriptive phenomenology (map) are used to discover and describe the different template theories (the territory) that are unique to each of the four child psychiatric nurses who were interviewed. Following this, a story is punctuated, which is referred to as the structural synthesis. It is the heartbeat of the investigation. The dissertation concludes by reflecting on the paradox of how the invisibility of the child psychiatric nurses allowed for the visibility of the dissertation and encourages the reader to ask pivotal questions about the important role of the child psychiatric nurse, working as part of a multidisciplinary team, in order to improve patient care. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical psychology)

This study explored the Object Relations of a sample of 45 subjects who were using alcohol and were diagnosed with co-morbid Depressive or Bipolar disorders and/or Personality disorders. All subjects were receiving treatment at a government psychiatric hospital in South Africa. The similarities and differences in the Object Relations of these individuals were identified. A biographical questionnaire, the Alcohol Use Disorder Test (AUDIT), which was used as a screening measure, and the Bells Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORRTI) were administered to obtain information from a purposive sample. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the results of the assessment measures. Analysis of the BORRTI data indicated a high rate of depressive and personality disorders within this sample. Results of the sub-sample (n=29) whose scores were included in the Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient analysis indicate that higher levels of alcohol consumption result in increased levels of hallucinations and delusions. Other correlations were identified between high levels of alcohol consumption and heightened levels of reality distortions and more uncertainty in the perceptions of these individuals. Significant differences in the scores of the male and female participants were identified. With the female participants, the higher the level of alcohol consumption, the lower the individuals scored in terms of pathological levels of egocentricity, uncertain perceptions, insecure attachments, alienation, social incompetence as well as hallucinations and delusions. Alternatively, in the male sample, higher levels of alcohol consumption result in increased hallucinations and delusions, reality distortions, uncertainty in perceptions, alienation, social incompetence and egocentricity. / Psychology / M.A. (Research Psychology)