<p> This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experiences and coping strategies of six Black American women leaders in the Washington DC metro area. Using the conceptual framework of intersectionality, coupled with the concept of stigma-induced identity threat and the Transactional Model for Stress and Coping, the study linked the emotional and psychological outcomes of stigmatization and barriers in the workplace to a need to engage coping processes. Stigmatized leaders found it necessary to rely on a number of coping mechanisms, including: 1) mentorship, 2) internal peer support, 3) external support system, 4) reliance on faith, 5) &ldquo;speaking up&rdquo;, 6) overcompensation, and 7) withdrawal to overcome workplace barriers. Findings revealed that while it is common for leaders to consider and sometimes engage negative coping responses, positive coping responses were most common and most effective. Additionally, the findings indicated that withdrawal can, in some cases, serve as a positive coping response.</p>

<p> Recent survey results indicated that 51% of young women who experienced or observed gender discrimination also experienced ageism (Business Professional Women&rsquo;s Foundation, 2011). The purpose of the current study was to examine a possible construct for predicting the perceptions of gender and age discrimination among young working women (N = 327, M = 25.6 years old) . Job satisfaction, stress, and work-life balance were examined as mediating variables. In addition, double jeopardy (i.e., gender and age discrimination interaction) among young working women was examined. The results indicated that perceptions of gender and age discrimination are predicted by core self-evaluations, job satisfaction and stress mediate this relationship, and double jeopardy was not supported. Collectively, these results may be useful to organizations wishing to expand the diversity of their workforce and/or prevent perceptions of discrimination among minority employees, especially women.</p>

<p> The influx of females into the military in recent years has drawn increasing attention to the impact of extended and often repeated deployments on parent-child attachment. The challenges associated with deployment may be particularly taxing on young children due to their emotional and cognitive immaturity, lack of coping skills and dependence on their caregivers for daily functioning. While children&rsquo;s reaction to parental deployment varies by age, the longer and more frequently a parent is deployed, the greater the psychological, health and behavioral risk for the child. These adjustments can be complicated when mothers suffer psychological distress related to combat exposure, military sexual trauma, increasing their risk of suffering from symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression. These adjustment and mental health issues, in combination with prolonged separation, will all complicate the reestablishment of a secure attachment bond with their children.</p><p> This manual seeks to provide clinicians with a comprehensive overview of the unique deployment-related stressors of female veterans, and their impact on mental health and reintegration. With a focus on the parent-child relationship, this manual will utilize attachment theory as the foundation to understand how the change, disruption, stress and loss experienced during deployment affects young children and their mothers. Moreover, this manual discusses mindfulness-based treatment interventions and practical tools to guide clinicians in aiding female veterans to prepare their children for deployment, cope with deployment, and reestablish the attachment bond upon returning home. </p>

<p> Women make up less than 5% of the highest levels of organizations in the United States (Branson, Chen, &amp; Redenbaugh, 2013; Zarya, 2016). The current study focuses and builds upon previous research on one significant contributor to the lack of gender parity at the top levels of management: discrimination due to stereotyping (Hoobler et al., 2011; Martell, Parker, Emrich, &amp; Crawford, 1998; Schein, 2001). Furthermore, the current study examines the role of a specific day-to-day interaction on a female subordinate&rsquo;s perceived promotability (i.e., pushing back on a task-related request from her superior). To that end, participants were recruited online, instructed to take on the supervisor role, were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (i.e., acquiescing, negotiating, and refusing), viewed illustrated video clips, and provided their assessments of a female subordinate&rsquo;s promotability. Results indicate that the female subordinate was perceived to be the most promotable when she acquiesced, followed by when she negotiated the task-related request. Refusing the request resulted in the lowest perceptions of promotability. These findings suggest that a female subordinate&rsquo;s perceived promotability is influenced by the extent to which her behavior aligns with the female stereotype.</p><p>

<p> This study presents an existential-hermeneutic analysis of nine women's first-person accounts of extended periods of solitude. The accounts were analyzed along the five existential dimensions of spatiality, temporality, embodiment, language, and co-existentiality, producing a rich portrait of the women's lived experience of solitude. One of the first-person accounts was provided by the author of the study, who underwent three solitary retreats in the interest of this project, adding an autoethnographic component to the work. Theory from the existential-phenomenological, monastic, ecopsychological, and feminist literatures was applied to the data, enabling us to interpret the significance of the shifts the women experienced through an interdisciplinary set of lenses. The women experienced both subtle and profound shifts in their senses of self and modes of being in the world over the course of their retreats. In the absence of direct human relations, the women developed greater intimacy with things, non-human beings, and the Divine. Through the practice of simplicity, the women cultivated humility and more contemplative modes of seeing, revealing previously hidden contours of the material world and fostering a child-like sense of wonder. By leaving clock time and slowing down, the women became increasingly oriented toward the present moment, entrained to the rhythms of the natural world, and attuned to their desire. By retreating from the gaze of the (human) other, the women worked to heal a sense of alienation from their own bodies, experienced a respite from feminine performativity, and came to move through the world more seamlessly and comfortably. And by observing silence, the women cultivated the ability to listen beyond the human conversation and the chattering of their own minds, developed a more sacred relationship to language, confronted their emotional "demons," and found themselves increasingly drawn toward the poetic. Overall, through their solitudes, the women developed a greater stance of receptivity toward the more-than-human world, deconstructed elements of identity and modes of being aligned with the "false self," and recovered aspects of their lived experience which had been neglected or suppressed over the course of becoming an adult, and especially a woman, in the context of contemporary American culture.</p>

<p> The following study sought to explore transformative changes in self-esteem, self-perception of dance ability, and expressions of spirituality that may occur when adolescent girls not only participate in classical ballet classes, but also learn in a teaching model emphasizing compassion encouragement discipline technique. This study performed a pre and posttest using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the dance subscale of Vispoel's Arts Self-Perception Inventory (ASPI), and MacDonald's short version of the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI) on 27 adolescent girls ages 14 through 19 randomly divided into 2 even groups, comparison and experimental, who participated in a 5-week classical ballet course. Both groups were taught by the researcher. The comparison group was taught in a traditional dance instructor style paying most attention to the execution of the participants' steps and dance combination performance rather than any internal changes. The experimental group received the researcher-developed Compassion Encouragement Discipline Technique. Results of the pre and posttests of each of the inventories were compared and analyzed via an analysis of variance and discussed to explore the efficacy of this pedagogical style. Quantitative results indicated no statistical significance on standardized assessments measuring their self-esteem, arts (dance) self-perception, or expressions of spirituality. However, researcher observed differences in the comparison and experimental group were noted and discussed. Because transpersonal psychology allows for emotional transformation, this study contributes to furthering transpersonal literature by acknowledging the potential impact of student/teacher rapport in the compassion and empowerment-based teaching of classical ballet to adolescent girls.</p>

<p> The suffering associated with postpartum depression (PPD) has been well documented in both quantitative and qualitative literature. Inquiry into the experience of PPD as transformational or producing personal growth does not exist. The objective of this grounded theory study was to explain and describe the nature of transformation through PPD. Methods included 1 to 1.5 hour interviews with a theoretical sample of 20 women self-identifying as (a) having had PPD, and (b) considered the experience transformational. No definition of transformation was given to intentionally avoid bias. A total of 328 pages of transcribed interviews were coded in open, axial, and selective order using iterative constant comparison, and reflective coding matrices. Four core categories of transformation through PPD emerged: (a) Before / <i> I was unprepared,</i> (b) During / <i>I was shattered,</i> (c) After / <i>I am a different person,</i> and (d) Beyond / <i> I was meant to have PPD.</i> Women were unprepared for the onset of symptoms, shattered by the physical and psychological symptoms during PPD, including suicidal ideation. Despite care provider failure to screen, women acted as agents in accessing their own care. After cessation of symptoms women experienced increased self-confidence, compassion for others, and enhanced relationships. All women reported achieving new professional or vocational goals such as authoring books, returning to school, or changing careers. Women reported increased sense of purpose and meaning to life as a result of their experience of struggling to survive PPD. The theory discovered was that PPD can be experienced as a traumatic life event, through which post-traumatic growth can occur. Future research into the experience of a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder as a traumatic life event expands the understanding of the mechanisms of human potential through suffering and provides insight into treatment, assessment, and prevention.</p>

<p> The strong black woman (SBW) phenomenon was explored in college-educated African American women in the Los Angeles region. Quantitative measures indicated that these women averaged high levels of stress, depression, and perceived racism. Qualitative data derived from short open-ended questions yielded eight themes describing both the positive aspects of being a SBW (being a role model for family and community, and feeling empowered), as well as its negative aspects (prejudice, internalized bias, stress, masking, self-neglect, and relational strain). Correlational and regression analyses explored the relationships among the quantitative and qualitative variables. Clinical and research implications and recommendations were discussed.</p>

<p> Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there has been a significant amount of research on the Middle East and Islam. These studies inform the academic community regarding the culture and religion of the region and its people. An area of research regarding the culture and people of the Middle East that has not been represented in the literature is the experience of honor. Honor has been researched from a sociological and anthropological perspective, and honor killings have been present in the media. However, there was a need for the experience of honor, specifically among first generation Levantine Arab American women, to be explored in a qualitative study. The methodology used for this study was Moustakas&rsquo; heuristic research design, which allowed the primary researcher to illuminate the experience of honor among first generation Levantine Arab American women. The study found that honor was a complex experience for the participants. The multifaceted experience was familial and societal, public and private, and individual and collective. The experience of honor among first generation Levantine Arab American women was found to be one that started in early childhood and continued into adulthood, never really ending for the participant. The participants describe their lives as a struggle between the wants of the individual and the wants of the family and community. The implications of the study are discussed further in Chapter 5.</p>

<p> It is well-known that war veterans experience long-lasting physical and psychological injuries following their deployment, and recent studies have proposed the construct of moral injury (MI) to explain the moral and spiritual effects of war on individuals. Litz et al. (2009) defined MI as "perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations" (p. 6), and Drescher et al. (2011) interviewed trauma experts to identify types of events that could create MI and the lasting sequelae of these events. Vargas et al. (2013) provided validation of MI by examining male Vietnam veterans' self-reported effects of combat participation and found themes of MI events and symptoms consistent with those found by Drescher et al. (2011). However, current research on MI has focused solely on male veterans, despite the fact that women have served in the military since colonial times, most often as nurses. Therefore, it is yet unknown whether the current definition of MI applies to warzone nurses. To expand the current understanding of MI to deployed female nurses, this qualitative study identified signs and symptoms of MI as reported by 100 randomly selected female veterans who served in the Vietnam War from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS). Major themes identified by coders were compared to those previously identified, and results suggest that nurses in Vietnam experienced symptoms of MI consistent with those previously identified in male combat veterans and at a higher rate.</p>