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This thesis is offered as a series of three studies which applies the 3 + 1Cs relationship model (Jowett, 2007) to the study of the trainer-client interpersonal relationship in structured health-related fitness environments. The proposition that a rewarding and enjoyable working relationship should play an essential role in developing a client s motivation for, and commitment to, exercise is intuitive. However, the conceptual basis of this relationship, along with its determinants and consequences, remains to be investigated in trainer-led exercise settings. By establishing the theoretical suitability of the 3 + 1Cs model for this context, the thesis provides a valid framework for future study of this topic. It addresses a gap in the extant research by investigating whether the trainer-client relationship is a significant social variable which has the potential to promote adaptive motivation towards exercise and psychological well-being. The first study interviewed trainer client dyads to determine how the underlying constructs of the 3 + 1Cs model were expressed in the context of their interpersonal working relationship and to evaluate the applicability of the model. The second study used the code categories generated in the first study to develop and validate a questionnaire designed to measure relationship quality in client-trainer dyads. Evaluation of the structural validity of the questionnaire was used to provide further confirmation of the relevance of the 3C + 1 relationship model to this context. The third study used this questionnaire to investigate some of the antecedents and determinants of the trainer-client relationship in a sample of exercisers. Client perceptions of the trainer s trait emotional intelligence was investigated as a relationship antecedent. The psychological consequences of the relationship were tested using Self-Determination Theory (SDT: Deci & Ryan, 2000) by examining the association of relationship perceptions with need satisfaction, intrinsic and identified motivational regulation and psychological well-being (subjective vitality). The findings of these studies support the conceptual validity of the 3Cs for the study of client-trainer relationships in health-related exercise. The validation of the 12-item Client-Trainer Relationship Questionnaire (CTR-Q) and confirmation of its structural and criterion validity endorses this conclusion. Clients perceptions of their working relationship were found to be significantly and positively related to their perceptions of their trainer s trait emotional intelligence (a relationship antecedent). Relationship quality was also significantly and positively associated with the psychological consequences of psychological need satisfaction. In turn psychological need satisfaction was significantly associated with autonomous motivational regulation and subjective vitality. In conclusion, the thesis has shown that the client-trainer relationship operates as a key social variable congruent with SDT propositions to affect clients motivation and psychological well-being. The effectiveness of this relationship can be influenced by a potentially modifiable personal characteristic of the trainer, namely trait emotional intelligence.

The purpose with this qualitative interview-study was to try, from the carer´s point of view, to describe the meaning and the essence of the good meeting. The participants were selectively chosen and were all women of varying life- and professional experience. They were interviewed with four interrogative forms that dealt with the experiences of the meaning and the essence of the good meeting. The analysis of the contents of the four interviews produced five themes: the meaning and the essence of aware presence in the good meeting, the meaning and the essence of the personal alliance, the carer's need of being seen and getting appreciation, the courage to bring up insulting behaviors while still preserving the relationship, personal qualities of the care. Aware presence was to be a main theme through out the meeting. Mutual satisfaction and attention to personal boundaries was emphasized primarily in the personal alliance and trust and confidence was important. It was considered difficult, sharing your personality while still stake out boundaries. The carer also had the need to feel seen and to receive appreciation. The carer as a reward for a work, well done, took positive signals from the person in receipt of care. In close relationships and meetings, the carer sometimes felt insulted by the persons in receipt of care and their relatives. The informants to create the good meeting used personal qualities like courage, sensitivity, flair and common sense.

This dissertation investigates the transition to college. It examines why and how middle class families choose college and factors that shape the decisions of mothers, fathers and their departing children. In addition, it explores the changes that parents experience as longstanding identities shift when children leave home, a process I have labeled role transformation from primary to secondary parenthood. Finally, it considers consequences for the parents' relationship to one another, and gender-based outcomes for parents as they themselves are launched into the next phase of their lives. The research is based upon interviews I conducted with parents and children in twenty middle class families. During stage one, I interviewed mothers, fathers and children individually the summer following the child's high school graduation. During stage two, a year later, I again interviewed mothers and fathers individually. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. This dissertation is an account of class, gender, generation and transformation. I argue that it is not only middle class children whose class position is preserved through the attainment of higher education, but parents as well. In addition, I contend that when parents and children conflict as to the selection of a college, deferring to children frequently carries economic implications for parents, and that emerging patterns suggest a redefining of norms governing appropriate middle class parent and child behaviors. Further I submit that as they launch children to adulthood, mothers and fathers undergo the transformation from primary to secondary parenthood through an observable sequence of stages through which they pass. Finally, I show that despite cultural norms which assume mothers will be distressed as children leave home, it is fathers who are more likely to experience this passage negatively.

This study uses a targeted sample of 138 couples in Western Massachusetts to examine the impact of child care choices on social networks across the transition to parenthood and return to work. Dual-earner couples were interviewed separately during the third trimester of their first pregnancy and again near the child's first birthday. This study seeks to determine whether reliance on child care providers with different relationships to the couple influenced new mothers' and fathers' ability to maintain a diverse set of relationships with others. More specifically, it is hypothesized that as one draws on resources from a wider network to provide child care (expanding from the couple only to her kin, his kin, some combination of both sets of kin, and finally outward to non-kin providers), that one will have the ability to maintain a wider circle of contacts following the transition to parenthood and return to employment. This research has uncovered significant differences in new parents' social networks. As predicted by previous research, women's networks were more strongly influenced by the transition than men's, and gender differences in network composition, especially the percentage who are coworkers, intensified. A prenatal gender difference in network size dissipated by the baby's first birthday, with men's network size decreasing more than women's to lead to similar size postnatally. Regression results suggest that gendered patterns are influenced by choice of child care provider. Men's networks appear most restricted by a couple-only child care strategy, as men who used any other child care option reported ties with significantly more coworkers than men providing care while their partners worked. Women appear to have the least restrictions, and the most signs of diversity, when they chose a provider unrelated to either parent. At the second interview, women reporting use of a non-kin provider had significantly lower frequency of contact with others than those using their own kin, fewer partner's kin than those using their partner's kin for child care, and a higher percentage of coworkers than those using no child care.

Survivors of child sexual abuse are often plagued by a miriad of residual effects which have the potential to limit their functioning and interfere with their interpersonal relationships. Twenty-three successful survivors were interviewed to determine what problems they attributed to the abuse and the process they had gone through to reach some degree of wholeness. Eight therapists of survivors were interviewed to determine how they treat past victims of sexual abuse. The content of these interviews was used to generate a book directed to the layperson who might be a survivor of sexual abuse, friend/family member of such a survivor or a therapist interested in treating these individuals. Major themes addressed are: a definition of sexual abuse, a discussion of who abuses children, outline of the residual effects experienced by survivors from both a male and female perspective, a discussion of therapies and other aids for breaking the cycle of continued victimization, suggestions of what survivors might experience while going through therapy, a consideration of the complications of sharing the facts of the abuse with the survivor's children, an exploration of the difficulties in learning to trust again and a discussion of what is meant by a "true" survivor. The book is interwoven with first person accounts of survivor's experiences with both incest and extra-familial abuse. Sexual abuse is seen in the context of other assaults on childhood such as alcoholism and physical abuse.