The underlying assumptions of Western counselling and psychotherapy are based on Western European values such as individualism and autonomy. How applicable then are the goals and practices of Western counselling and psychotherapy when applied to non-Western cultures? This research study interviews eight Western-trained Chinese counsellors/psychotherapists who have experience with counselling both Western European clients and Chinese clients. It was found that the establishment of rapport using traditional Western counselling theories has varying amounts of success depending on (a.) the familiarity of the client to Western values, (b.) the familiarity of the counsellor/psychotherapist with Chinese values, (c.) the awareness to not apply knowledge of a client's culture in a stereotypical way, and (d.) the willingness of the counsellor/psychotherapist to be open, flexible, and patient in negotiating a process that fits comfortably with BOTH the particular counsellor/psychotherapist's cultural bias and the particular client's cultural bias. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Avian influenza H5N1 causes occasional but serious infections in humans and efforts to produce vaccines against this strain continue. Current influenza vaccines are prophylactic and utilize the two major antigens, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. NP is an attractive alternative antigen because it is highly conserved across all influenza strains, has been shown to increase the rate of viral clearance, and potential therapeutic vaccines would elicit cytotoxic T lymophcyte responses in an infected person. The NP antigen from H5N1 was characterized using a variety of physiochemical methods to gain insights into both the biological and physical properties of the antigen which are important from a regulatory viewpoint when considering therapeutic vaccines. Results obtained to date show that NP is relatively unstable and indicate that the conformation of the H5N1 NP antigen is highly dependent upon purification procedure, buffer conditions, pH and the presence or absence of RNA. These factors will need to be clearly defined and taken into consideration when manufacturing and regulating NP vaccine preparations.

This is the first known occupational therapy (OT) study to examine the emergent patterns of the client-therapist working alliance during the course of a community-based OT intervention. The experiences of both the adult client and OT in each of four dyads are explored and described as they relate to the evolution of the alliance over time and the impacting contextual factors. These experiences were considered alongside the therapy outcomes. Mixed methods, including quantitative scales and interviews, were used in this multiple-case study situated within a pragmatism paradigm. Individual case and cross case analyses were conducted leading to the identification of eleven cross case themes. These findings suggest that the interpersonal relationship between a client and OT develops with the goal of becoming a safe harbour for the clients. The strengthening interpersonal bond appears to create an impetus within the client to engage in therapeutic activities. This enticed engagement results in the client’s performance of novel activity purposefully selected by the OT as bearing personal meaning for the client. The clients’ engagement often results in enhanced insight into their abilities and meaningful functional gains. This success appears to reinforce and energize both the momentum toward the collaboratively-established therapy goals, as well as provides a positive feedback mechanism into the working alliance. The OT’s training, philosophy and skill, client’s attributes, and environmental influences (both physical and social) all appear to have potential implications upon the working alliance’s development and/or the therapeutic achievements. Further research will be needed to confirm or disconfirm these findings and may include further study with variable client populations (e.g., different ages, different conditions), the role of humour in the therapeutic process, the impact of client’s degree of social isolation on the alliance, as well therapists’ disparate levels of use-of-self and the related impacts upon the alliance.

Two studies were conducted to determine whether controlled, abdominally-predominant breathing could be accurately implemented during periods of acute anxiety by speech anxious/phobic individuals, and what effect breathing control has on autonomic and subjective indices of anxiety. Twenty-two moderately speech anxious young adults took part in Study 1. The results of this study indicated that after two weeks of training, only 50% of trainees were able to implement the controlled breathing technique with any degree of accuracy while waiting to deliver an impromptu speech before a small audience. No one were successful at reliably implementing the technique during the speech itself. As in previous research, training had little impact on autonomic arousal but was associated with improvements in self-reported anxiety. Similar findings emerged for Study 2, which differed from Study 1 in that it involved a larger (N = 48) and more highly speech anxious sample who participated in a longer (4-week), more intensive training program. Although training had little effect on subjective or autonomic arousal during speech anticipation and speech delivery, it did result in significantly higher predictions of speech aptitude and emotional control relative to no treatment. Such findings suggest that breathing control is not a useful emotion-focused coping strategy on its own, but may add to the effectiveness of exposure-based therapies by enhancing patients' self-efficacy and willingness to expose themselves to feared situations. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to understand the meaning of change through therapeutic enactment in psychodrama. Existential and hermeneutic phenomenology conducted from the perspective of a dialectic between storied narrative and thematic analysis was used to investigate the essential meaning of the experience. Eight co-researchers who had experienced significant change through therapeutic enactment in psychodrama were interviewed in depth. Transcripts from these interviews were transposed into narrative form in order to straighten the story of change through enactment in a before, during, and after sequence. These eight individual narratives were validated by the co-researchers. An independent reviewer checked each narrative against the original transcript, video tapes of the enactments, and comments of each co-researcher for trustworthiness. Each validated narrative provided a rich description of the lived experience of change through therapeutic enactment. In addition, fifty-nine (59) essential themes were formulated from the individual narratives: Fourteen (14) in the planning stage, twenty-four (24) in the enactive stage, and twenty-one (21) in the reflective, or integrative stage, of the enactment process. These themes were then woven into a common story representing the pattern and meaning of change through therapeutic enactment for this group of co-researchers. Finally, notations made during the transposing of the transcripts into personal narratives, formulation of the essential themes, and construction of the common story were used to develop a theoretical story of change through therapeutic enactment, as a final level of hermeneutic interpretation. This theoretical story was then presented in summary form as a thematic sequence of multi-modal change processes representing a model of change through therapeutic enactment. The results of this study suggested numerous theoretical and technical implications. Foremost among theoretical implications was the suggestion that Tomkins (1992) script theory of affect may best illuminate the effects and processes of psychodrama and enactment. This study also had implications for interactional theories of development, contemporary psychoanalytic theories of interpersonal functioning, theories of moral development, theories of dream functioning, and ethological theories of myth and ritual. The results of this study also suggested a number of additional qualitative and comparative outcome studies for future research. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

M.Tech. / It is estimated that 59% of South African adult women and 29% of South African adult men are overweight (Department of Health, 2004). Significant risks arise from being overweight including: elevated cholesterol and the development of cardiovascular disease which increases with a greater gain in weight (Duyff, 2006). There is a lack of sufficient evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of many of the herbal weight-loss products currently available thus indicating that more research on herbal products and their efficacy in weight-loss is required (Lenz and Hamilton, 2004). The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of a herbal complex (Aloe ferox, Fucus vesiculosis, Taraxacum officinale and Trigonella foenum– graecum) as an aid in weight loss in females utilising comparative measurements of the participants’ weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), body fat percentage and circumferential measurements of their hips, waist, thighs, upper arms and abdomen. The study was a quantitative, double blind placebo controlled study. The study involved thirty overweight female participants (BMI 25.5 - 30 kg/m²) between the ages of twenty and thirty five. The participants were recruited by means of advertisement posters placed at the University of Johannesburg, Homoeopathy Health Centre. The participants were randomly divided into two groups of fifteen. One group received the herbal complex (Aloe ferox, Fucus vesiculosis, Taraxacum officinale and Trigonella foenum– graecum) and the other group received the placebo. Participants from both groups attended an initial interview where they were screened by means of a questionnaire and physical examination, including the measurement of their height and weight, calculation of their Body Mass Index (BMI) and body fat percentage, as well as the circumferential measurement of their hips, waist, thighs, upper arms and abdomen. Each participant was given a weekly diary and instructed to take fifteen drops of the issued medication three times daily, after meals for the duration of the full eight week study. Participants were examined, weighed, and the measurement of their body circumference and fat percentage were recorded every second week for the duration of the eight week study. Data from each participant was collected and analysed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). From statistical evaluation, it was determined that the herbal complex (Aloe ferox, Fucus vesiculosis, Taraxacum officinale and Trigonella foenum– graecum) was ineffective as an aid in weight loss in females.

This study is concerned with identifying the effects of religious participation in the therapeutic treatment of the mentally ill.

Many colleges have devoted institutional resources to retention initiatives, particularly those targeting students who have been placed on academic probation, but assessment of academic enhancement courses for students on academic probation has generally been limited to correlational studies in which the entire intervention serves as the independent variable. This study, guided by that of Kivlighan et al. (2018), applied knowledge of therapeutic factors related to positive outcomes in group psychotherapy to academic enhancement seminars in order to determine whether the same factors might also be associated with positive outcomes, as measured by semester grade point average (GPA) and participants’ reported college self-efficacy and perception of the college environment. Ratings of therapeutic factors from 145 first-year college students enrolled in 11 sections of an academic enhancement seminar were modeled as predictors of change in participants’ grade-point average (GPA), college self-efficacy, and perception of the college environment. We did not find an association between any of the therapeutic factors and the outcome variables. The intraclass correlation (ICC) coefficient (ρ) for post-intervention semester GPA was 0.09 (p = .021), meaning 9% of the variance in adjusted post-intervention GPA was accounted for by a student’s course section. Further research is needed to understand differences in sections that contributed to this.

No description available.

Human gut harbors 100 trillion microbial organisms that is intrinsically linked to individual’s health and diseases, including cancer. Food fiber and phytochemicals such as polyphenols are considered as prebiotic-like dietary modifiers. They can influence the gut microbial communities, and in turn to modulate disease outcome and drug responses of the host. Saponins belong to a family of phytochemicals commonly found in many medicinal and edible plants. Herbal saponins have raised keen interest among scientists for their health-promoting effects, but have not been investigated for their potential as prebiotics. Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Gp) is riched in triterpenoid saponins and has been consumed in China and other part of the world as an herbal tea and as a folk medicine. In our lab, we have demonstrated that Gp possesses strong anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects. Whether Gp possesses prebiotic property and whether gut microbiota plays any part of the anticancer effect of Gp are the questions addressed in the present study. Thus, we hypothesized that Gp saponins (GpS) might modulate the gut microbiota, which in turn enhance its anticancer activities. In the study, the gut microbiome analysis were carried out using two main techniques, neamly the enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC-PCR) and 16S pyrosequencing approaches. Both xenograft nude mice and Apcmin/+ mice were employed as the animal models to investigate the interaction between the herbal saponins and the gut microbiota in the host. Athymic nude mice have been employed for tumorigenic research for decades, however, the relationships between the gut microbiome and host’s response to the grafted tumors and drug treatments are unexplored. For the first part of the thesis, we investigated the relationship between the gut microbiota and grafted tumor in the nude mice under the treatment of Gp saponins. Partial least squared discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) of ERIC-PCR data showed that the microbiota profile of xenograft nude mice departed from that of the nonxenograft mice. However, prolonged treatment of GpS seems to realign the fecal microbiota with the pretreatment control. Pyrosequencing data reiterated the differences in fecal microbiome between the nonxenograft and xenograft animals. GpS treatment had a much stronger impact on the phylotypes of the xenograft than the nonxenograft mice. In addition, GpS treatment markedly induced the relative abundance of Clostridium cocleatum and Bacteroides acidifaciens, for which the beneficial effects on the host have been well documented. ApcMin/+ colorectal cancer mouse model was further employed for the investigation of the association of the gut microbiota and cancer occurred inside the gut, which was a more direct site to interact with the gut microbiota. In the ApcMin/+ mouse model, we found distinct difference of fecal microbiome between the ApcMin/+ and the wild-type littermates. GpS treatment significantly reduced the number of intestinal polyps. GpS also increased the ratio of Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes and reduced the sulfate- and sulfur-reducing bacteria lineage and potential opportunistic pathogens, which might cause certain deleterious effects to the host. The impact of GpS on the gut mucosal environment was also examined. We found GpS treatment improved the gut barrier function by increasing the numbers of Paneth cells, goblet cells, up-regulating the expression of E-cadherin and down-regulating the expression of N-cadherin in the intestine. In addition, GpS treatment down-regulated the protein expression of beta-catenin and p-STAT3. Furthermore, higher levels of anti-inflammatory and tissue repair-related cytokines as well as Arginase I, but lower level of iNOS expression were found in GpS-treated ApcMin/+ mice, indicating increased anti-inflammatory macrophage phenotype M2 (associated with tissue repair) and reduced proinflammatory phenotype M1. Furthermore, in addition to GpS, other herbal saponins also showed prebiotic-like effects in C57BL/6 mice. In summary, this study provides first hand evidence for the impact of herbal saponins on the gut microbial ecosystem and new insight into mechanisms responsible, at least in part, for the activities of GpS. We demonstrate that tumor growth induce intestinal dysbiosis. GpS treatment can inhibit tumor progression and concurrently alter the microbiome by increasing symbionts and/or decreasing pathobionts, which may contribute to its chemopreventive effect against tumorigenesis. Herbal saponins showing prebiotic-like effects may be used for improving the health of the host by manipulation of the gut microbiota.