M.A. / The line between the postmodernism and modernism is largely unbridgeable. The line between left and right sides is also division. Sometimes there is a narrow and rapid point of crossing, and then it is gone. Modernism and post modernism are only alike in their sharing of a common semantic. The line is a division in thinking. Both sides are isolated by the lack of a significant bridge. The line also signifies that there can either be one or the other way of thinking, the two cannot exist on the same page - but they do. And they do it in life, too. Psychology has, by it's very attempts to prove itself a science, isolated the individuals uniqueness and connection with other humanity, by inadvertently developing a therapeutic stance of separateness and isolation. What makes this doubly sad is that psychology has rationalised that this is not the case. The right side of the text speaks clearly of human input, and pro-active contact on a physical and caring level, and the residents grow. The left hints at what might be the case, because it is, after all, only a theory. The research conducted looks good, but may not be correct... No theory will put itself on the line. The right side is on the line every second of every day. Lives are being built here. By sitting and reflecting at a person, in a 'therapeutic environment', the person is immediately isolated from any human social interaction or input. By studying the individual and his behaviour with a view to dissect cause, effect and totality have become victims. The person of needs be must become 'abnormal'. He becomes different, an anomaly. Then both himself and the community scream for an end to stigmatization. This text is a metaphor for the conflict experienced between being humans and psychology. There are many other ways to view this text.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigated aggression types and beliefs about aggression among male psychiatric in-patients, using the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) and the Expagg Questionnaire (Expagg). Two groups were compared: an aggressive group (.0= 40) and a non-aggressive group (n = 44). As expected, the aggressive group displayed significantly higher levels of self-reported aggression, as reflected by their total scores on the AQ and its four subscales (anger, hostility, physical and verbal aggression). The non-aggressive group scored significantly higher on the Expagg than the aggressive group. This indicates a tendency towards expressive beliefs about aggression where aggression is being viewed as an expression of negative feelings and thus as a temporarily loss of control. The relatively lower Expagg scores for the aggressive group shows a tendency towards instrumental beliefs about aggression where aggression is seen as a means to reach a desired goal and thus as an effort to temporarily gain control over the situation. The total scores on the Expagg correlated negatively with self-reported aggression. The implications for prevention and intervention programs are discussed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie het verskillende aggressietipes asook oortuigings aangaande aggressie van manlike psigiatriese binnepasiënte ondersoek, deur gebruik te maak van die Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) en die Expagg Questionnaire (Expagg). Twee groepe is vergelyk: 'n aggressiewe groep (n=40) en 'n nie-aggressiewe groep (n=44). Die aggressiewe groep het, soos verwag, beduidend hoër vlakke van selfgerapporteerde aggressie behaal. Dit blyk uit die betrokke groep se totale tellings op die AQ en sy vier subskale (woede, vyandigheid, fisiese en verbale aggressie). Die nie-aggressiewe groep het beduidend hoër tellings as die aggressiewe groep op die Expagg behaal. Dit dui op 'n neiging tot die huldiging van 'n stel ekspressiewe oortuigings ten opsigte van aggressie by die nie-aggressiewe groep. Aggressie word dus beskou as die uitdrukking van negatiewe gevoelens en dus as 'n tydelike verlies van kontrole. By die aggressiewe groep dui die relatief laer Expagg-tellings op die huldiging van instrumentele oortuigings ten opsigte van aggressie. Aggressie word dus beskou as 'n poging om 'n verlangde doelwit te bereik en word ervaar as 'n poging om tydelike kontrole oor die situasie te verkry. Die Expagg-totaaltellings het negatief gekorreleer met selfgerapporteerde aggressie. Die implikasies vir voorkomende en intervensieprogramme word bespreek.

This qualitative study aimed to investigate psychotherapy clients’ phenomenological experience of positive regard. Though positive regard is broadly accepted as a useful and effective clinical tool across orientations, it has been under-researched and overlooked in favor of more clearly conceptualized variables, such as empathy and working alliance. Designed as a follow-up to a quantitative study that yielded a tentative factor structure and inventory for measuring positive regard (Psychotherapist Expressions of Positive Regard, PEPR), the study also aimed to elucidate the extent to which those findings could be replicated in a qualitative format. Following Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology, 15 psychotherapy clients, primarily white women, participated in semi-structured interviews eliciting the factors that contribute to their experience of positive regard in therapy, the absence of positive regard in therapy, and the impact of positive regard on the course of psychotherapy. Nine domains and several key findings emerged from the analysis. While clients named a wide range of therapist behaviors and actions that served as markers of positive regard in the relationship, three constituent attitudes appeared repeatedly throughout the CQR categories, suggesting an underlying tripartite structure of positive regard – warm authenticity, flexible responsiveness, and empathic understanding. Clients viewed positive regard as a crucial ingredient of therapy, suggesting that it facilitates self-disclosure, risk-taking, personal growth, and rupture resolution. In relationships where positive regard was lacking, clients became disengaged from treatment, and terminating without explanation was not uncommon. Clinical implications and recommendations for optimizing the experience of positive regard are offered. The substantial overlap and interdependence of positive regard with the other Rogerian facilitative conditions of congruence and empathy is discussed. Convergence and divergence between the PEPR factor structure and the results of the current study are also highlighted, with future directions proposed.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [114]-129). Also available on the Internet.

The psychosocial functioning of the families of clinic-referred adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was evaluated in two studies. Study 1 examined the psychiatric and psychological difficulties of married adults with ADHD and their spouses, with a focus on the quality of their marital adjustment and family functioning. Study 2 focused on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, the psychological functioning, and the social functioning of children with ADHD parents. / Results revealed that married adults with ADHD had higher rates of comorbid psychiatric disorders and more psychological distress than non-ADHD control adults. The spouses of adults with ADHD did not differ in rates of psychiatric disorders from the control spouses, however, they reported significantly higher levels of current psychological distress. Greater marital and family dysfunction were reported by adults with ADHD than control adults. The spouses of ADHD adults, however, did not report greater marital and family dysfunction than the spouses of controls. / The children of ADHD adults were found to be at high risk for ADHD. Forty-three percent of the children met DSM-IV criteria for the disorder. The children with ADHD were found to have higher rates of comorbid disorders, more psychological difficulties, and significantly poorer social functioning than the control children. The non-ADHD children of ADHD adults were not found to differ from control children on these measures. Having a parent without a psychiatric disorder in the home was found to have a protective effect on behavior problems in the non-ADHD children. / Together, these studies suggest that evaluating the functioning of family members and the health of the family relationships are important when assessing clinic-referred adults with ADHD. These results suggest that involving family members in the therapeutic process may be beneficial.

The study seeks to explore and to offer a critical account for the 'discursive doings' of student psychiatric nmsing practice as they are jointly constructed in the episodes of conversation between the nmse and client-speakers within the context of the communitybased psychiatric clinic. The study is built around a social constructionist framework and is concerned with the analysis of the discursive activities present within seven (7) transttibed, audio-recordings of student nurse-psychiatric client interactions. A thick and sometimes critical description of three of the contextual forces back grounding/foregrounding the discursive processes of psychiatric nursing is given. These include the public health psychiatric care context, the problem-solving approach of the undergraduate psychiatric nursing curriculum and the assumption and effects of modem psychiatric nursing theory. The first level of analysis is an aspect of the methodology and offers a descriptive and interpretive analysis of the talk in the texts. Various conversational discourse analytic tools were used here to transform talk into text and to develop the starting point for the subsequent positioning theory analysis. The second level of analysis is a positioning theory analysis of happenings within these texts. Some of the textual descriptions generated in the first level of analysis are used to illuminate and to add substance to the accounts of these positioning theory happenings. The analysis has shown that from a social constructionist positioning perspective, the unfolding nurse-client dialogue in these texts operates in four potentially distinct ways - highlighting, herding, hectoring and heeding - with specific effects for their going on together in conditions of relationship. These ways of talking are shown to be contrary to the person-eentered rhetoric of modem psychiatric nursing and more aligned with the bio-medical format of talk in helping contexts. Can these activities be dismissed as non-nursing activities? The implications for a modem psychiatric nursing theory that holds the person-centred approach to be its quintessential essence are considered and a number of ideas for how client-authorised expressions may be jointly manifest in conversations situated in this practice context are offered. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

One of the main problems facing the psychiatrist in forensic psychiatry is the distinction between malingering and mental illness especially in Zulu speaking patients. This study identified twenty items from the literature and clinical practice that separate malingering from mental illness. The validity of these items was assessed through an experimental, cross -sectional study design which compared two groups. These were a sample of fifty malingering African patients, male and female and a control group of fifty mentally-ill African forensic patients who were classified as State Patients. Since the data was categorical, that is, the outcome was either positive (that is malingering) or negative (that is mentally ill) the groups were compared by employing such methods as the chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. Seventeen items we re found to be statistically significant and were regarded as valid items that separate malingering from mental illness. Then the effectiveness of these seventeen items in separating malingering from mental illness was determined by calculating their sensitivity, specificity, their false positive rate and their false negative rate. The items fell into Group four categories or groups. Group I are those three items with a high sensitivity, a high specificity, a few false positives, a few false negatives, high positive predictive values and high negative predictive values. They were able to diagnose both malingering and sickness with a high degree of accuracy. Group 11 consisted of eight items with a high specificity, a few false negatives and high positive predictive values. i1 These items are good at diagnosing malingering patients directly. Group III consisted of six items with a high sensitivity, a few false positives and high negative predictive values. These items are good at diagnosing sick patients and therefore diagnose malingering indirectly by excluding mental illness. Group IV consisted of three items which did not show statistical significance between malingering and mentally ill patients. This study proved that seventeen items were able to separate malingering from mental illness to a statistically significant extent and are effective for the use in the diagnostic assessment of Zulu speaking forensic patients. / Thesis (Ph.D)-University of Natal, Durban, 1997.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1986. / Bibliography: leaves 209-223. / Photocopy. / xvi, 223 leaves, bound 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.