This thesis investigates the literature on trauma and grief in order to explore the existence of the phenomenon of traumatic grief in children. Appropriate therapies are explored for treating traumatic grief in children. The focus in this research is on non-directive art therapy as the literature has found it to be useful in traumatic circumstances. The therapeutic relationship and the focus on containment are valuable in addressing the primary need of the child in therapy especially when traumatic grief is to be addressed. A qualitative case study approach was chosen. Two case studies were selected to investigate the phenomenon of traumatic grief in children. Purposeful sampling was used to select the cases to observe the phenomenon of traumatic grief. The case studies included pre-therapy and post-therapy assessments, which included cognitive, emotional and behavioural assessments. Art therapy was found to address the problems in the two cases. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

Text in Afrikaans / Euro-centric (Western) therapeutic approaches in psychotherapy are criticized by several authors as being unsuitable in an African context. The reconciliation of the contrasting approach of world- and human views regarding individualism (Western) and collectivism (Africa) is being questioned. In this research a qualitative approach was used. The objectives were to explore, describe and to explain the use of gestalt play therapy with the adolescent who suffered trauma due to the loss of one or both parents, in a multicultural context. Case studies were done on three adolescents in eight therapeutic sessions of Gestalt play therapy. The finding and conclusion of this research showed that Gestalt play therapy could be used with the traumatised adolescent in a multicultural context. The child could be understood from a holistic point of view as the individual as well as a member of a cultural group. / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play Therapy)

Text in Afrikaans / This study is aimed at the development of strategies for therapists to be used with adolescents and late adolescents (15 to 20 years of age) who have lost a loved one. This will be done by focussing on the redefining of identity as a way of becoming. The starting point of the study is to be found in the problem formulation that the process of becoming of adolescents who have suffered the loss of a loved one, may be blocked because they do not have the necessary skills to overcome the loss. The second problem is that therapists do not have the necessary skills to empower these adolescents so that the redefining of identity can be achieved. / Social work / D. Diac. (Spelterapie)

Convergence of technology has made access to the Internet faster, easier and cheaper. Criminals, including paedophiles, child abusers and pornography traders make use of this technology to commit criminal offences. Computer Forensic Examiners (CFEs) are members of the Cyber Crime Unit, a professional, specialised unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) who are responsible for computer forensic examination including the investigation of child pornographic images. The aim of the study was to seek understanding on what psychological effects the CFEs experienced when working with the images and was conducted from within the social constructionism and the narrative frameworks. The images had a severe impact on the CFEs as was clearly uncovered in the stories of six CFEs who participated in this study. The participants' stories were recorded and transcribed after which the application of thematic content analysis found that the participants all suffered similar negative effects. These findings were integrated with the findings of a focus group as well as with the findings of a similar study that was conducted during the same time by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and resulted in identifying symptoms of trauma and stress experienced by the CFEs. Based on these results recommendations regarding the support for the CFEs were made. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Total institutions' (which include prisons) unique context prescribes "confinement" of inmates. Coping mechanisms applied "outside" (especially the ability to create distance from stressful events) is thus ineffective. Another common feature is lack of privacy, which may result in "forced intimacy" - individuals being forced into a situation of physical and psychological "invasion" (beyond the norm) of their person/personal space. Victims lose control over intimate decisions, including who may and may not be intimate with them. Within prisons, gangs "force intimacy" by sexually victimizing inmates, taking advantage of the context to heighten their power, and to control inmates "under" them. Four (subjects) victims' experiences and means of adaptation/ empowerment were investigated phenomenologically. Results indicated that inadequately empowered victims suffer prolonged and repeated victimization - a continued "posttraumatic stress disorder" - which is more traumatizing and draining than one circumscribed traumatic event (due to its intensity, immobilization and resulting drastic change of "personality"). / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a psycho-educational intervention program could support traumatised people to increase their mental toughness. Mental toughness is a well proven phenomenon in sports psychology as well as in leadership in the corporate world. I wanted to apply the use of mental toughness in trauma. Literature was consulted to understand the phenomena of mental toughness and trauma respectively. The corresponding aspects of mental toughness and trauma were selected for the literature review and many similarities between mental toughness and trauma were discovered. The corresponding aspects included action taking, the importance of the “self”, facing negativity and adversity, the importance of support systems, flexibility and adjustment, dealing with guilt and self-blame, the role of self-talk, people’s perceptions, goal-setting, commitment, helplessness / learned helplessness and dealing with stress. I used the corresponding aspects to compile a psycho-educational intervention programme to support traumatised persons to develop increased mental toughness that will support them to better deal with trauma. A valid and reliable psychometric instrument, the MTQ48 (Mental Toughness Questionnaire 48), has been successfully used to determine people’s mental toughness in sports psychology and in corporate management, but has never been tested before in supporting traumatised people. An action research design was employed, where both qualitative as well as quantitative methods were used. This is also known as a mixed research design. Eight traumatised people took part in the research which was presented weekly, as individual sessions, over eight weeks. Data collection methods included questionnaires, observation and individual therapy. The results of the study indicated that seven of the eight participants’ overall mental toughness increased after the intervention program, and four of the eight participants’ mental toughness components increased. As an additional benefit, all respondents indicated that they could better deal and cope with their trauma after the intervention program. The conclusion could be drawn that the psycho-educational intervention program was successful in supporting the traumatised participants to increase their mental toughness. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Comme les études sur la couverture médiatique ont démontré qu’elle influence pratiquement toute personne qu’elle touche, des consommateurs aux jurés aux témoins, les deux études de cette thèse doctorale ont respectivement examiné l’opinion du public sur l’imposition de restrictions sur les médias dans les palais des justices et l’impact de la couverture médiatique sur la santé mentale des victimes de crime. Le gouvernement québécois a récemment introduit des restrictions sur les médias dans les palais de justice afin de minimiser l’influence des journalistes et des caméramans. Bien que l’affaire a atteint la Cour suprême du Canada, une étude préliminaire a trouvé que le public est largement favorable à ces restrictions (Sabourin, 2006). La première partie de cette thèse doctorale cherchait à approfondir ce sujet avec un échantillon plus représentatif de la population. Deux cent quarante-trois participants comprenant six groupes expérimentaux ont rempli des questionnaires mesurant leur opinion de ces restrictions. Les participants ont été divisé en deux conditions expérimentales où ils ont visionné soit des clips audiovisuels démontrant une atmosphère de débordement dans des palais de justice ou des clips plutôt calmes. Un troisième groupe n’a visionné aucun clip audiovisuel. De plus, il y avait deux versions du questionnaire ayant 20 items où les questions ont été présenté en sens inverse. L’étude a trouvé qu’une grande majorité des participants, soit presque 79 pourcent, ont supporté la restriction des médias dans les palais de justice. Il est intéressant de noter qu’un des groupes n’a pas supporté les restrictions – le groupe contrôle qui a lu les énoncés supportant l’absence des restrictions en premier. La deuxième composante de cette thèse doctorale a examiné l’impact des médias sur les victimes de crime. De nombreuses études expérimentales ont démontré que les victimes de crime sont particulièrement susceptibles à des problèmes de santé mentale. En effet, elles ont trois fois plus de chances de développer un trouble de stress post-traumatique (TSPT) que la population générale. Une étude a confirmé cette conclusion et a trouvé que les victimes de crimes qui avaient une impression plutôt négative de leur couverture médiatique avaient les taux les plus élévés de TSPT (Maercker & Mehr, 2006). Dans l’étude actuelle, vingt-trois victimes de crimes ont été interviewé en utilisant une technique narrative et ont complété deux questionnaires mésurant leur symptômes du TSPT et d’anxiété, respectivement. Une grande proportion des participantes avaient des symptômes de santé mentale et des scores élévés sur une échelle évaluant les symptômes du TSPT. La majorité des narratives des participants étaient négatives. Les thèmes les plus communs incluent dans ces narratives étaient l’autoculpabilisation et une méfiance des autres. La couverture médiatique ne semblaient pas être liée à des symptômes de santé mentale, quoique des facteurs individuels pourraient expliquer pourquoi certains participants ont été favorables envers leur couverture médiatique et d’autres ne l’été pas. Les résultats de ces deux études suggèrent que le public approuve la restriction des médias dans les palais de justice et que des facteurs individuels pourraient expliqués comment la couverture médiatique affecte les victimes de crime. Ces résultats ajoutent à la littérature qui questionne les pratiques actuelles qu’utilisent les médias. / As media coverage has been shown to influence virtually everyone that it reaches, from its consumers to jurors in cases with pretrial publicity to eyewitnesses, the two studies that comprise the present dissertation respectively investigated the public’s opinion on imposing restrictions on the media in courthouses and the impact of media coverage on the mental health of crime victims. The Quebec government recently imposed restrictions on the media in courthouses in order to reduce the interference of journalists and cameramen. While the issue reached the Supreme Court of Canada, the public were found to be largely in favour of these restrictions in a preliminary study (Sabourin, 2006). The first part of this dissertation sought to further investigate this topic with a more representative sample of the population. Two hundred forty-three participants in six experimental groups filled out questionnaires that measured their opinion of these restrictions. There were two conditions with audiovisual clips showing either a media circus-like atmosphere or relatively calm proceedings in Quebec courthouses. A third control group did not view any audiovisual clips. There were also two versions of the twenty-item questionnaire where the questions were presented in reverse order. This study also found overwhelming support for the restrictions; nearly 79 percent of participants supported restricting media presence in courthouses. Interestingly, one experimental group did not – the control group that read statements that supported an absence of restrictions first. The second component of this dissertation examined the impact of the media on crime victims. Crime victims have been shown to be especially susceptible to mental health problems. Indeed, they are three times as likely as the general population to develop Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One study confirmed this finding and found that crime victims who had negative impressions of the media coverage of their cases had the highest rates of PTSD (Maercker & Mehr, 2006). In the present study, twenty-three crime victims were interviewed using a narrative technique and completed two questionnaires that respectively measured their PTSD symptoms and anxiety. A great proportion of participants were found to have mental health symptoms and high scores on the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R). The majority of the narratives of these participants were negative. The most common themes included in these narratives were self-blame and suspiciousness of others. Media coverage did not appear to be related to any mental health symptoms, although individual factors may explain why some participants were favourable towards the coverage and others were not. The findings of these two studies suggest that the public approves of restricting media presence in courthouses and that individual factors may explain how media coverage impacts crime victims. These results add to the literature that calls current practices used by the media to gain coverage into question.

The purpose of the current study was to examine Dutton's (1992) model of moderating and mediating variables which may impact the relationship of violence from an intimate partner with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. This model was tested within three ethnic groups (African American, n = 303, Euro-American, n = 271, and Mexican American, n = 260), of low income, community women in serious, long-term relationships. The importance of the differences and similarities observed are discussed within a framework of the PTSD as well as domestic violence literature.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Dans son ouvrage Shell Shock Cinema, publié en 2009, Anton Kaes se distancie fortement du travail fondateur et classique de Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, publiée en 1947, et portant sur le cinéma pendant la période de Weimar. Réfutant la thèse de Kracauer selon laquelle un inconscient collectif allemand annonce la montée du nazisme dans le cinéma de l’entre-deux-guerres, Kaes affirme au contraire que le shell shock, héritage de la Première Guerre mondiale, est l’un des moteurs du cinéma weimarien. Les travaux de Kaes s’inscrivent dans une historiographie en renouvellement qui, confrontant également la thèse de Kracauer, met désormais l’accent sur la Première Guerre mondiale, et non sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale, pour mieux comprendre et analyser le cinéma weimarien. Ce mémoire, tout en étudiant de façon détaillée l’historiographie du sujet, tend à approfondir et à réévaluer la thèse d’Anton Kaes en l’exposant à davantage de films représentant des traumatismes personnels, des traumatismes sociaux et des chocs post-traumatiques (CPT). Ces maux sont exacerbés par des tensions sociopolitiques – insurrection de janvier 1919, Traité de Versailles, occupation de la Ruhr, l’inflation de 1923-24, etc. – alimentant à la fois des représentations symboliques et concrètes d’expériences traumatisantes qui caractérisent l’ensemble du cinéma weimarien. / Anton Kaes’ 2009 Shell Shock Cinema made a clear shift from Siegfried Kracauer’s 1947 classic book, From Caligari to Hitler. Refuting Kracauer’s major thesis – which found hints of the rise of Nazism through an analysis of Weimar cinema – Kaes placed shell shock as a primary source of influence on the 1920’s German movies. Recent research takes a new look at Kracauer’s thesis and its significance, emphasizing the First World War, and not the Second World War, as the new cornerstone of studies on Weimar Cinema. This paper, while conducting a thorough review of literature on the subject, seeks to reconsider Kaes’ thesis, expending it to a larger filmography selected for its numerous representations of personal trauma, social trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These mental troubles are exacerbated by socio-political tensions, – such as the Versailles Peace Treaty, the Ruhr occupation, the January 1919 insurrection and the inflation of 1923-24, – feeding both symbolic and concrete depictions of traumatic experiences throughout the Weimarian cinema.