The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceived lack of empowerment of registered nurses in the Mpumalanga Province. To determine the reasons for the perceived lack of empowerment and the effect thereof on professional conduct after which empowerment guidelines would be developed which managers can apply in order to enhance the empowerment of registered nurses in their service, and in turn cultivate confident nurse leaders. The main study objectives were to describe what empowerment entails, and its effect on professional conduct in the workplace; explore the level of empowerment among nurse managers and registered nurses; ascertain the effect of perceived powerlessness on the professional conduct and behaviour of nurse managers and registered nurses; establish the reasons for the perceived lack of empowerment among nurse managers and registered nurses; determine if there is a difference in the way in which nurse managers and registered nurses perceive the existing empowerment in their public hospitals and to develop empowerment guidelines for nurse managers and registered nurses. Kanter’s Theory of Structural Empowerment formed the basis of the study and guided the structure of the report. This theory contains three components, each with several dimensions resulting in 14 factors to be tested. A quantitative research approach, with an exploratory and descriptive design was used. Using a researcher-developed questionnaire as the data collection instrument. The site population consisted of one randomly selected district containing eight public hospitals in the Mpumalanga Province. All nurse managers and registered nurses in these hospitals were invited to participate in the study. The researcher delivered the questionnaires to the respondents of the eight hospitals that met the inclusion criteria. Two hundred and sixty seven (267) completed questionnaires were collected upon completion resulting in a response rate of 30.2%. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Generally, the results indicated that the majority of the respondents felt empowered with the dimensions contained under the structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and positive work behaviours and attitudes components of Kanter’s Theory. However the respondents noted that they had limited resources. According to the results those nurse managers and registered nurses who felt empowered, scored strongly in the areas of structural and psychological empowerment. The empowerment guidelines were developed for dimensions which were found to be non-empowering to assist nurse managers and registered nurses in creating workplace environments that could enhance the empowerment of registered nurses in their hospitals. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

This study explores trainee psychotherapists' experiences of double bind situations and inconsistency between explicit and implicit contexts of training. The epistemological foundations of this text are postmodern, social constructionist and ecosystemic. A review of the relevant literature is presented, which includes aspects such as explicit and implicit contexts, double bind and experiences of trainees in training. This is followed by an account of the qualitative research approach adopted, namely, discourse analysis. Themes that are extracted from the text of the transcribed interviews are assumed to reflect discourses in training and the broader societal contexts in which trainees find themselves. These discourses are seen to inform trainees' constructions of their experiences in training. The findings of the analysis are found to concur with the initial hypotheses of this dissertation, as well as with findings in the literature. Recommendations for future research are offered. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Borderlands. Swedish youth care in the intersections of care and punishment This dissertation concerns staff working in special residential homes, or secure units, for boys and young men and, less specifically, the compulsory care of problematic teenagers. The study is based on interviews with staff members and participatory observations of daily practices at a compulsorycare institution. The empirical material is complemented by observations of learning situations and interviews with students and teachers in education of social pedagogy. The aim of the thesis is to map out and to analyse understandings of, and motivations for, compulsory care that is produced and sustained through articulations of residing teenagers, treatment practices and institutional staff in the daily work, and in staff narratives, at a secure unit for compulsory care. Three aspects of compulsory care are analysed: constructions of teenagers, of treatment practices and of subject positions or identity of staff. Concepts and ideas from a post-structural framework are used as theoretical tools to conduct analysis of the interviews and observations. Discourse, as well as a three-fold concept of logics, is central for the analysis. As a theoretical complement to the main analytical framework, perspectives from symbolic interactionism are used. The results of the thesis show that tensions and ambivalence characterise compulsory care for adolescents. Aspects of care as well as of punishment, for example, are both evident parts of the institutional work and narratives studied. The teenagers are alternately being constructed as children in need and as manipulative criminals: articulations that are made part of either a logic of care or a logic of punishment. Other tensions that are analysed as significant parts of institutional practices and subject positions are those of the biological and the social, theory and practice, and power and powerlessness. Age, gender and class are all significant parts in constructing subject positions for both teenagers and staff and in creating a division between the two groups. Such categorisations are articulated together in various ways in the different logics identified. These subject positions also have consequences for institutional interactions and for the institutional care provided in secure units.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka förklaringar till varför äldre omsorgstagare blir utsatta för övergrepp och försummelse av omsorgspersonal. För att fånga omsorgspersonalens subjektiva och kontextuella uppfattningar delades en semistrukturerad kvalitativ enkät ut till valda omsorgsverksamheter i tre kommuner i Sverige. Materialet bearbetades med tematisk analys vilket resulterade i tre teman: organisationens ansvar, den äldre individen och den omsorgsgivande individen. Därefter analyserades resultatet utifrån två teoretiska ramverk och en teoretisk modell: makttekniker, våld- och maktlöshetsteori samt den ekologiska tolkningsmodellen och jämfördes med tidigare forskning. Resultatet visade att omsorgspersonal kan använda olika makttekniker för att hantera komplexa omsorgssituationer och att övergrepp och försummelse inom äldreomsorg i stor utsträckning verkar hänga samman med kvalitén på arbetsmiljön och omsorgspersonalens utbildningsnivå. Vidare visade resultaten att även individuella egenskaper hos omsorgstagaren påverkade förekomsten av övergrepp och försummelse, så som sjukdomsbild och stark integritet. Känsla av vanmakt utifrån egna tillkortakommanden och att inte veta hur man ska hanterar komplexa omsorgssituationer visades öka risken för övergrepp på och försummelse av de äldre. Slutligen diskuteras vikten av en god arbetsmiljö, aktivt ledarskap, vidareutbildning och handledning för omsorgspersonalen och förslag till framtida forskning inom ämnet. / This study explores possible explanations for physical and psychological abuse and neglect carried out by caregivers towards elderly care recipients within elderly care. A semi structured qualitative questionnaire aimed at caregivers within especially chosen domestic services and retirement homes in three municipalities in Sweden was handed out. To sort the material a thematic analysis was chosen which resulted in three themes: the organization's responsibility, the elderly individual, and the caregiving individual. The empirical analysis was made using two theoretical frameworks and a theoretical model: power techniques, the theory of violence- and powerlessness and the ecological interpreting model and was then compared to previous research related to the subject. The results showed that caregivers could make use of different power techniques to handle complex care situations and that abuse and neglect within elderly care could depend on the working environment and the caregivers’ level of education. Furthermore, the results showed that the elderly’s individual attributes could affect the prevalence of abuse and neglect, such as the elderly’s clinical picture and strong integrity. Also, frustration regarding one’s own shortcomings and not knowing how to handle complex care situations was shown to increase the risk of abuse and neglect for the elderly. Finally, we discuss the importance of a good working environment, active leadership, further education and professional guidance for caregivers and suggestions for future research regarding the subject.

Text in English / This research was aimed at giving a voice to three women, who are constructed as having had a traumatic event recalled from their autobiographical memory. To achieve this objective an epistemological framework of social constructionism was used to investigate autobiographical memory recall of trauma. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with participants who constructed themselves as having had a traumatic event. A case study approach was used to gain access to the information and to compare themes. The research explored the way in which dissociation, voluntary thought suppression, minimisation and outright denial enabled the three participants to alter unbearable memories through the use of recurring themes. To interpret these stories the content of the themes was analysed using thematic content analysis. The participants represented different cultures, languages and religions. In sharing their symptoms this did not necessarily mean they attached the same meaning to a specific theme, as individual meaning-making corresponded to the individual‟s background and history and their perception of the trauma. The stories related by the three participants revealed a shattered worldview that brought them into opposition with community norms and standards, which the narrators experienced as silencing and judgemental. In this regard the researcher‟s aim was to generate information from the participants themselves. This inquiry into the personal trauma stories and meanings suited a qualitative research approach, a form of methodology that allowed personal insight into the meanings the three participants attributed to their trauma and the autobiographical recall of trauma. At the same time it allowed a co-constructed reality to take shape between the researcher‟s reality and the participant‟s reality, always acknowledging the importance of their being the expert of their own individual trauma memory. This is in contrast to a quantitative approach which focuses on numbers to quantify the results; a qualitative approach on the other hand is a personal, rich information-gathering tool that takes into account the emotions and meaning-making of each individual story without any intention to generalise the information gathered to a larger population It is hoped that through this research there is a realisation that although trauma victims share symptoms, the meaning-making of the individual attached to this trauma is influenced by their society and history within their respective environments. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Text in German, summaries in German and English / Mit der vorliegenden Arbeit wird Ijob 28 in der Perspektive einer ästhetischen Theologie des Alten Testaments, wie sie vornehmlich Helmuth Utzschneider vertritt, untersucht. Entspre-chend der Grundbedeutung der Begriffe Ästhetik und Theologie stehen die Wahrnehmung im Allgemeinen und die Wahrnehmung Gottes im Besonderen im Zentrum der Betrachtung. Hierfür werden im Großen die ästhetische Gestalt und der theologische Gehalt (die Literari-zität und die Theologie, die literarische Ästhetik und die ästhetische Theologie) von Ijob 28 beleuchtet, wobei der Fokus auf dem theologischen Gehalt liegt. Die Untersuchung folgt der These, dass die Analyse von Ijob 28 in ästhetisch-theologischer Blickrichtung einen neuen Verstehenshorizont des Kapitels eröffnet. Dabei birgt das Ergebnis das Potential, Strukturen des Lebens zu heben und bewusst zu machen, um desgleichen deren Erneuerung im Horizont der Gottesfurcht herauszufordern. / This dissertation is an examination of Job 28 from the perspective of an aesthetic theology of the Old Testament, as represented primarily by Helmut Utzschneider. Following the basic meaning of the terms aesthetic and theology, the perception at large and the perception of God specifically are at the core of this exploration. Therefor the aesthetic form and the theo-logical content (the literary aspect and the theology, the literary aesthetic and the aesthetic theology) of Job 28 are examined although a greater focus is on the theological content. The thesis presented here is that an analysis of Job 28 from an aesthetic-theological perspective opens up a new level of understanding this chapter. The result has the potential to recover structures of life and make them more apparent, as well as to provoke their renewal in the light of the fear of God. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / M. Th. (Old Testament)

This research was aimed at giving a voice to three women, who are constructed as having had a traumatic event recalled from their autobiographical memory. To achieve this objective an epistemological framework of social constructionism was used to investigate autobiographical memory recall of trauma. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with participants who constructed themselves as having had a traumatic event. A case study approach was used to gain access to the information and to compare themes. The research explored the way in which dissociation, voluntary thought suppression, minimisation and outright denial enabled the three participants to alter unbearable memories through the use of recurring themes. To interpret these stories the content of the themes was analysed using thematic content analysis. The participants represented different cultures, languages and religions. In sharing their symptoms this did not necessarily mean they attached the same meaning to a specific theme, as individual meaning-making corresponded to the individual‟s background and history and their perception of the trauma. The stories related by the three participants revealed a shattered worldview that brought them into opposition with community norms and standards, which the narrators experienced as silencing and judgemental. In this regard the researcher‟s aim was to generate information from the participants themselves. This inquiry into the personal trauma stories and meanings suited a qualitative research approach, a form of methodology that allowed personal insight into the meanings the three participants attributed to their trauma and the autobiographical recall of trauma. At the same time it allowed a co-constructed reality to take shape between the researcher‟s reality and the participant‟s reality, always acknowledging the importance of their being the expert of their own individual trauma memory. This is in contrast to a quantitative approach which focuses on numbers to quantify the results; a qualitative approach on the other hand is a personal, rich information-gathering tool that takes into account the emotions and meaning-making of each individual story without any intention to generalise the information gathered to a larger population It is hoped that through this research there is a realisation that although trauma victims share symptoms, the meaning-making of the individual attached to this trauma is influenced by their society and history within their respective environments. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Syftet med studien var att undersöka ifall intuitivt tänkande, analytiskt tänkande, tro påparanormala fenomen, tro på pseudovetenskap, förkastande av forskning kring klimat,förkastande av forskning kring vaccin, utbildningsnivå, maktlöshet samt tro på enkla lösningarpredicerar tro på konspirationsteorier. Insamlingen av data skedde genom ett icke slumpmässigtbekvämlighetsurval samt frivillighetsurval. Studien var av kvantitativ tvärsnittsdesign med 244deltagare, varav 112 män, 131 kvinnor samt 1 annan/vill ej uppge, i åldrarna 18–80 år (M=37.1,SD=14.5). Resultatet från analysen visade att modellen var signifikant samt att tro påparanormala fenomen (β=.36, p<.001), förkastande av forskning kring vaccin (β=.32, p<.001)och maktlöshet (β=.11, p<.05) var signifikanta prediktorer för tro på konspirationsteorier.Däremot var inte intuitivt tänkande, analytiskt tänkande, tro på pseudovetenskap, förkastandeav forskning kring klimat, tro på enkla lösningar eller utbildningsnivå signifikanta prediktoreri modellen. Resultatet kan ligga till grund för att vidare undersöka tro på konspirationsteorierssamband med andra faktorer än aktuell studies prediktorer i framtida forskning. / The purpose of the study was to examine if intuitive thinking, analytic thinking, paranormalbeliefs, pseudoscientific beliefs, rejection of science regarding climate, rejection of scienceregarding vaccine, education, powerlessness and belief in simple solutions predicts belief inconspiracy theories. The data was collected through a non-randomised convenience andvolunteer sampling. The study used a quantitative cross-sectional design with 244 participants,of whom 112 were men, 131 women and 1 other/wish not to say, aged 18–80 (M=37.1,SD=14.5). The result from the analysis showed that the model was significant and that belief inconspiracy theories was significantly predicted by paranormal beliefs, (β=.36, p<.001),rejection of science regarding vaccine (β=.32, p<.001) and powerlessness (β=.11, p<.05).However, the result showed that intuitive thinking, analytic thinking, pseudoscientific beliefs,rejection of science regarding climate, belief in simple solutions and education were notsignificant predictors of belief in conspiracy theories in the model. The result can be used as abasis for future research to further examine belief in conspiracy theories relationship to factorsother than the current study's predictors.

This study aimed to relate the emotions of two fathers regarding their incestuous behaviour. The epistemological framework is social constructionism. The `case-study approach' was chosen as the most suitable method to gain access to the information. Qualitative in-depth interviews with the fathers were conducted to collect data about their emotional experiences regarding their incestuous behaviour and Hermeneutics was used as method of data analysis. The emotional experiences of the participants regarding their incestuous behaviour were reconstructed in the form of prominent themes. Themes that seemed to re-occur in both participants' stories were identified and discussed as common themes. These themes included; ambivalence, powerlessness and guilt. This study provides a rich understanding of the emotional experiences of incestuous fathers. These experiences seem to be unstated or insufficiently emphasised in the traditional empirical, cause and effect, linear modernist literature. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Job insecurity in the workplace has become an increasingly important trend in organisational research. The appraisal of job insecurity by individuals plays a significant part in how reactions manifest in the experiences of workplace stressors, job satisfaction, positive and negative work attributes and social support. However, there is a lack of research regarding specific workplace stressors at work leading to certain outcomes like safety behaviour, turnover intention and mental health, especially within a South African working context. Job insecurity has also been classified as a workplace stressor. The existence of other stressors tends to increase the ultimate effect of insecurity for the individual. The attempts from organisational management to manage this phenomenon are therefore crucial in decreasing the negative effects of job insecurity and increasing the productivity of the organisation. In order to measure the job insecurity levels of employees, it is important to make use of valid and reliable job insecurity measures. An absence of empirical research on validity and reliability studies in terms of job insecurity in South African is evident. The main objectives of this research were: 1) to establish the psychometric properties of a measure of job insecurity in a selected gold mining company in South Africa; 2) to determine the influence of job insecurity and work stress (i.e. role conflict, clarity and overload) on worker safety performance and if coping could moderate this; 3) to investigate the theoretical and empirical relationships between job stressors (task completion ambiguity and task quality ambiguity), competency demands, employability perceptions, job satisfaction and turnover intention over time, and 4) to investigate if social support has a mediating effect between positive interpersonal attributes, negative interpersonal attributes, job insecurity and subsequent health. To achieve the first objective, a cross-sectional design was used (N = 566), including various business units of a South African-based gold mining company. The assessment of the psychometric properties of a measure of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity for employees was determined through construct (structural) equivalence, exploratory factor analysis and multivariate analysis of variance to calculate the comparison of the factor structure for the different cultural groups. For qualitative job insecurity, the scale shows low equivalence for the African languages group. Statistically significant differences were found between the levels of job insecurity of employees in terms of gender. The second objective, concerning the investigation into the relationship of work stress and job insecurity with unsafe behaviour at work, was achieved with across-sectional survey design (N = 771). The hypothesised model included the influence of role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, and job insecurity on unsafe work behaviour. Coping was introduced as a moderator in this relationship. The results indicated that when employees experience work stress and job insecurity, their safety compliance is low. This relationship was also moderated by a coping strategy of Avoidance. To achieve the third objective, a longitudinal study was conducted and data was gathered by means of an electronic survey, with 771 employees participating at Time 1, and 345 participating at Time 2. Results for predicting employees’ turnover intentions, experience of task completion and quality ambiguity, external employability and job satisfaction made a direct contribution in predicting their turnover intention. No mediating role of job satisfaction between job stressors, competency demands and employability perceptions on the one hand and turnover intentions on the other hand, were found. Addressing the fourth objective in investigating the moderating role of social support between the relationship of experiencing positive interpersonal (communication with the manager and feedback), negative interpersonal experiences (powerlessness and interpersonal conflict), job insecurity (quantitative and qualitative) and health, was met with a longitudinal random sample of employees in different business units in one selected multi-national mining company based in South Africa (N = 771). Results for these employees indicated that all the proposed variables, except feedback from the manager, were statistically significantly related to health. No moderating effect for social support could be found over time, but it was shown that interpersonal conflict at work is a longitudinal predictor of employee health. By way of conclusion, the implications of the research were discussed and recommendations for managers and for future research were made. / Thesis (PhD (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.