The phenomenon of panic is one of the most unedifying experiences to inflict the human condition. It is a globally-recognised problem regularly encountered in psychotherapeutic practice. Whilst it is thought that distressing psychological and social (‘psychosocial’) problems might help account for this experience, the precise role they play - particularly in first onset - remains difficult to fathom. For example, whilst there is evidence to suggest that stress related to an individual’s family and work life, marital circumstances, age and gender appear linked with initial episodes of panic, these and many associated stressors people endure remain largely under-researched. Following an inquiry aim that recognises the social construction of reality, this research offers an insight into my first experience of panic attack (my being both a panic sufferer and psychotherapist). The aim was to identify an ‘invisible cord’ (e.g. a series of causally linked stressful life events) related to my panic. These events are typically thought to be found in the twelve months prior to first onset and hold important clues to an individual’s recovery. Hence my research question was: ‘What sense can be made of the invisible cord of events leading to my first experience of panic attack’? Using analytical autoethnographic methods to guide this research, significant personal events were discovered and are presented here in the findings. The earliest events uncovered would stretch back far longer than twelve months; with a series of five scenarios plotted from childhood to my mid-forties. To ensure that this research remained an exercise in critical thinking, each event was then examined alongside broader psychosocial theory and frameworks; offering a connected analysis of this first attack and contingent factors. A summary follows, ‘pulling together’ aspects of this undertaking and offering implications for practice. For example, having only made visible elements of my stressful cord by means of the analytical methods at my disposal (including use of collage and timelines) I suggest that such tools might routinely help other panic sufferers in retracing their past. Equally, in learning that my (often confused) Christian faith was implicated in this panic, I advance that we, as therapists, must remain vigilant to matters of client spirituality: noting that traditional forms of religious guidance are receding in an increasingly sceptical UK society. The thesis concludes with a personal reflection that aims to facilitate a deeper understanding of my research journey.

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<p>Ett nytt sätt att behandla panikångest i form av gruppterapi med KBT redovisas ur ett patientperspektiv. Gruppterapeutisk historia och beståndsdelar i KBT tas upp liksom skamkänslor, ”compliance” och ”holding”. Fem kvinnor och tre män ur olika terapigrupper och med olika bakgrund intervjuades om sina upplevelser. Deltagarnas förväntningar, erfarenheter av gruppsammansättning och gruppdynamik samt gruppens bidrag till personliga förändringar och insikter studerades. Materialet bearbetades genom begreppskategorisering. Farhågor och förväntningar på andra deltagare dominerade hos deltagarna inför terapin. Under terapins gång hade andra deltagare motiverat och uppvärderat varandras behandlingsarbete samt visat på att individen inte var ensam om sitt tillstånd. Ingen var helt fri från panikångest efter behandling men har kunnat återerövra delar av sitt liv. Alla planerade någon form av behandlingsfortsättning.</p>

Ett nytt sätt att behandla panikångest i form av gruppterapi med KBT redovisas ur ett patientperspektiv. Gruppterapeutisk historia och beståndsdelar i KBT tas upp liksom skamkänslor, ”compliance” och ”holding”. Fem kvinnor och tre män ur olika terapigrupper och med olika bakgrund intervjuades om sina upplevelser. Deltagarnas förväntningar, erfarenheter av gruppsammansättning och gruppdynamik samt gruppens bidrag till personliga förändringar och insikter studerades. Materialet bearbetades genom begreppskategorisering. Farhågor och förväntningar på andra deltagare dominerade hos deltagarna inför terapin. Under terapins gång hade andra deltagare motiverat och uppvärderat varandras behandlingsarbete samt visat på att individen inte var ensam om sitt tillstånd. Ingen var helt fri från panikångest efter behandling men har kunnat återerövra delar av sitt liv. Alla planerade någon form av behandlingsfortsättning.

Recent criminological scholarship characterizes media attention to aggressive girls, or “mean girls,” as a moral panic, which is correlated with the creation of increasingly punitive antibullying policies in North America. Content analysis was used to uncover how news attention to youth aggression around the time of Reena Virk’s murder contributed to this moral panic in Toronto newspapers. Results indicate that Virk’s murder helped change the frequency and nature of news coverage of girls’ bullying. Reporting on girls’ bullying significantly increased and the dominant news frame falsely presented girls’ bullying as a major and rising problem in schools. The news coverage coincided with the development of more punitive Canadian youth policies. Recommendations for future research, theoretical development, and media practice are provided. / UOIT

This study is a discourse analysis of media representations of young people’s participation in the summer riots that spread across the UK in August 2011. Drawing on articles published in three UK newspapers The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Sun this paper critically assesses the ways in which the media identified the behaviour of young people as symptomatic of a general moral decline in British society. Along with the media portrayal of children and young people during these events, the study also highlights the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a further way of questioning the reporting practices of mainstream media. Articles 2, 12 and 13 will have specific focus in the study, in order to evaluate the media’s recurrent misrepresentation of young people’s participation in decision making on matters concerning their own wellbeing.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 51 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-41).

My thesis explores how discourse and material practices have created agoraphobia, the fear of public places. This psychological disorder predominates among women. Throughout much of Western history, women have been encouraged to stay home for their safety and for the safety of society. I argue that agoraphobic women have internalized this discourse, expressing fears of being in public or being alone without a companion to support and protect them; losing control over their minds or their bodies; and endangering or humiliating themselves. Therapeutic discourse also has created agoraphobia by naming it, categorizing the emotions and behaviors associated with it, and describing the characteristics of agoraphobics. The material practice of therapy reinforces this discourse. Meanwhile, practices such as rape and harassment reinforce the dominant discourse on women’s safety. I survey psychological literature, beginning with the naming of agoraphobia in 1871, to explain why the disorder is now diagnosed primarily in women. I examine nineteenth-century discourse that told women they belonged at home while men controlled the public domain. In 1871, the Paris Commune revolt epitomized the fear of women publicly out of control. I return to Paris a century later for a reading of the novel Certificate of Absence, in which Sylvia Molloy explores identity through the eyes of a woman who might be labeled agoraphobic. I ask whether homebound women are resisting or retreating from a hostile world. Instead of seeing agoraphobia only as a personal problem, people should question why so many women fear themselves and the world outside their home. My methodology includes an analysis of nineteenth-century texts as well as current media, prose, and poetry. I also support my arguments with material from professional journals and nonfiction books in different disciplines. Common to feminist research, an interdisciplinary approach was needed to situate a psychological disorder within a social context.

The creation, implementation, and ratification of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), as well as the growth of parallel private initiatives against human trafficking, have emerged from a neoliberal political agenda that focuses on redefinitions of labor, sexuality, securitization of humanitarian campaigns, and immigration policies. In this thesis, I explore some of the meanings and effects of those redefinitions by focusing on the affective registers of pity and panic in their ability to mobilize publics toward restrictive forms of assistance to real and imaginary victims of the so-called phenomenon of “modern-day slavery.”

This thesis explores the depiction of doping in the press. My interest in the topic stemmed from an early personal experience in competitive athletics where I was exposed to an in-sports reality that tolerated the use of performance-enhancing substances. However, references to doping in the media appeared to depict it in a different way. In order to investigate the divergence, the thesis analysed the reporting of two Olympic Games, namely Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. It focused on empirical data and thus all articles that referenced doping were collected one month prior, during and one month after the two Olympic Games. In total 1274 articles were collected and analysed. Adopting a post-structuralist approach, the discourse analysis of the data leads to the identification of journalistic techniques that constructed discursive statements of doping. It was observed that first of all, in the case of highly publicised drug cases, these statements could be understood as constructing a moral panic episode. Secondly, the same discursive statements were circulated in the press even in the absence of positive doping samples. The thesis draws on the theories of moral regulation and governmentality to make sense of the constant presence of doping discursive statements in the press. It argues that inducting doping into sport spectacle makes its depiction seem apolitical and disconnected from society. However, in-depth theorisation of the phenomenon shows that its mediated construction plays an active role in influencing public policy.