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Ces trois etudes, basees sur un scheme d'apprentissage social, visaient le developpement d'instruments d'evaluation et d'intervention aupres de personnes agees vivant dans la communaute. / La premiere etude a demontre qu'une intervention aupres de gens lors de la pre-retraite peut contribue a l'augmentation des attentes d'efficacite de soi, particulierement en ce qui a trait a leur planification d'activites satisfaisantes. Cette recherche a aussi indique l'utilite d'avoir recours a des groupe de pairs comme modele pour promouvoir l'adaptation a la vie de retraite. / La seconde avait pour objet de comparer les attentes sociales de deux groupes de femmes (jeunes, agees) face aux consequences de l'affirmation de soi. Les femmes plus agees choisissaient moins souvent de s'affirmer car elles ne croyaient pas que ceci provoquerait chez les autres les comportements desires. Les plus jeunes etaient plus portes a s'attendre a une reaction negative de la part de leurs amis. Les deux groupes anticipaient une augmentation de leur egard-de-soi suite a la mise en action de comportements affirmatifs. / La troisieme etude utilisait un scheme a cas unique pour evaluer l'effet d'une intervention d'habiletes sociales sur six femmes agees. Il s'agissait de modifier les comportements-cibles individuels par le truchement de techniques behaviorales (tels que repetition, modelage et retroaction); de selectionner des objectifs specifiques a l'environnement natural de chaque sujet; et de faire de la restructuration cognitive. Les resultats obtenus indiquaient l'efficacite du traitement pour ameliorer et maintenir les comportements cibles chez tous les sujets et ce, pour toutes les mesures utilisees a divers intervalles de temps. Cette etude illustre egalement l'application d'une telle methodologie dans un milieu clinique.

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to describe female adult children's experiences when they return to the parental home to live, and to develop theory to explain the processes and consequences involved in the return to the parental home. Primary data sources included 1 1/2 hour audiotaped, semi-structured interviews with 15 female adult children who had returned to the parental home to live. Other sources of data included individual and conjoint interviews with parents and daughters from a subset of four families, and field notes about the interviews. Grounded theory methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) was used. Transcribed interviews were systematically analyzed to develop a theoretical model, in which the core social and psychological process was labelled "regrouping." In response to life events and personal choices, women return to the parental home to regroup--to recuperate, reenergize, contemplate and pursue lifeplans. Their intention is to enhance personal well-being and to secure a better quality life in the future. Regrouping is embedded in the life context of female adult children's specific life-events and choices, living environments, family and social relationships, and sociocultural scripts -- all conditions that can hinder or facilitate the process. Regrouping is a cyclical rather than a linear process. Female adult children who had returned to the parental home did not experience a simple, uncomplicated linear forward movement towards attaining valued personal goals. Rather, they experienced an oscillating pattern of “faltering” and "advancing" in their efforts to realize valued goals. This experience has implications for the development of a fluctuating sense of self or self-image, the fulfilment of personal goals, the quality of the experience as positive or negative, and for family relations. The contribution of the theoretical model to the literature is the discovery that returning home in adulthood may be a strategy for managing change and transition in one's life and for attaining certain lifespan development tasks (e.g., individuating from parents, establishing a career, and attaining financial security). Implications for counselling practice, and the self-help needs of adults who have returned home to live are noted. Suggestions for facilitating returning adult children's personal development (i.e., clarifying personal goals, weighing the pros and cons of returning and remaining at the parental home, maintaining self-esteem, seeking social support) and facilitating family relations . (i.e, having realistic expectations of parents, being sensitive to mothers, negotiating privacy and boundaries, managing cross-cultural dynamics) are discussed. It is suggested that future research extend the application of the theory to men, as well as more diverse ethnic groups.

The purpose of this study was to examine the governing scripts in the lives of women with eating disorders via narrative analysis. Interviews were conducted with 5 women with eating disorders (EDs), whose ages ranged from 27 years to 36 years. An average of two interviews per participant took place, with each interview being recorded and transcribed. The interviews centred around early recollections (ERs) and dream reports, which were gathered in the context of their life-stories. The participants were recruited from private counselling practices, psychiatric practices, and family practices, and were considered suitable for the study if they expressed an interest in participating in the study, and their attending therapist or doctor was satisfied they fit the DSM-1V (APA, 1994) criteria for an eating disorder. Tomkins' (1979, 1987, 1991) script theory provided the theoretical underpinnings to the research, with Carlson's (1981, 1986) script-theoretic analysis as the primary methodological tool. Alexander's (1988) method of accessing scripts via principal identifiers of salience was used in conjunction with script-theoretic analysis when applicable. The ERs were examined for evidence of the nuclear scene, followed by analysis of the life-stories and dream stories for magnifications of the nuclear scene in the form of analogs and anti-analogs. The results showed the following commonalities: a) that a story of perceived loss of the parent or parental figure was at the heart of each nuclear scene, with the script threading through each woman's life as a theme of "longing for mother" or "a quest for love"; b) that the nuclear script was profoundly reactivated at the time of the development of each participant's ED; c) a family "no talk" rule about negative feelings and traumatic events; d) participants had difficult relationships with their mothers; e) a perception of home as unsafe, manifested in a recurring nightmare from childhood; f) participants responded to stress in their homes by adopting the personality of the "perfect girl" according to family values; g) body-image/self-image disturbances predated the eating disorder; and h) that traditional gender-roles and attitudes towards women were present in all the families in varying ways. More narrative research of the lives of women with EDs is needed to confirm and support these findings.

In contemporary transpersonal theory, women‟s experiences of transformation have largely been overlooked. This study seeks to answer the question, what are women‟s lived experiences of the path of transformation through self-other relationships? In setting the stage for the study, the researcher identifies two transpersonal theorists, Wilber and Almaas, and describes their models of consciousness development. She then outlines the feminist critique of existing psychological literature and the need for exclusively female research. Following is an inclusion of themes that have been extracted from the existing literature, themes which represent the biases of the researcher in what she expected to encounter in the current research. Further is a description of existentialism and the role it plays in inviting women to embark on a journey of transformation. The methods employed by the researcher were qualitative phenomenological-hermeneutics. Seven females participated in a three-stage interview process, whereby information was gathered via interviews, then further transcribed and interpreted. This information was then synthesized and presented in a thematic analysis where women‟s experiences were categorized into four separate stages. Finally, the sub-themes of each stage were compared to the stages of development as illustrated by Wilber and Almaas. Ultimately it is concluded that women‟s experiences are highlighted by the relational nature of self-development, and the cyclical process of the journey itself. / ix, 218 leaves ; 29 cm

This thesis explores how women who exercise regularly frame their involvement in exercise with regard to discourses of femininity, fitness, consumerism, and healthism, and how these contemporary discourses impact women’s exercise choices. Sixteen semistructured interviews were conducted with women who exercise regularly. The objective was to elicit detailed information about the types of exercise these women were involved in, how they came to exercise in particular ways, and with what rationales. A Foucaultian discourse analysis of the interview transcripts was undertaken to uncover commonalities and differences in how the sometimes competing discourses of femininity, fitness, consumerism, and healthism affect the types of exercise engaged in. By examining the interplay between discourse, power/knowledge, surveillance, discipline, subjectivity, and the resultant construction of normative feminine and health ideals, this thesis attempts to determine how women are constructed, and construct themselves, as regular exercisers and how this construction impacts the ways in which the women chose to exercise. / vii, 149 leaves ; 29 cm

Many studies have reported that women consume approximately twice the amount of psychotropic drugs as men. In an attempt to explain this ratio, a conceptual model of psychotropic drug was developed, focusing on questions of initial problem recognition and definition; problem-solving ability; and the perception of control. These factors were explored with 179 women chosen to reflect varying frequencies of drug use. In addition, patient-physician interaction was evaluated by psychiatrists' diagnostic and prescriptive reactions to differing patient attributes. / Multidimensional scaling interpretations across drug frequency groups indicated that external causal attribution and lack of control were concomitants of drug use. Deficient problem-solving, particularly at the definitional stage, accounted for 21% of drug use variance, discriminating 73% of drug users. Physicians were found to prescribe according to factors additional to diagnosis and symptomatology. This research was seen as providing theoretical coherence to the increasingly complex gestalt of drug use.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008. / In recent years, more studies are exploring how contextual factors may influence mate preferences. Based on social learning theory, power, attitudes towards egalitarian gender roles, and type of mating were expected to influence women's romantic preferences for physical attractiveness and for resources. An online questionnaire was administered to a community sample and data analyses were employed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). Results showed that, as women's power increased, women showed increased preferences for physical attractiveness and sexiness in potential short-term mates and increased preference for intelligence in potential long-term mates. Power and attitudes were also found to be significant in predicting women's preferences for physical attractiveness relative to potential earning capacity in both short-term and long-term mating conditions. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-92). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / 92 leaves, bound 29 cm

This study examined separation—individuation developmental issues for young adult women, from the perspective of object-relations theory. Its purpose was to explore a woman's perception of her relationship with mother as it is affected by age and request for psychotherapy as well as the relationship between the mother-daughter bond and selfreported personality characteristics. Ninety-six women from 17 to 40 years of age volunteered to participate, and they were grouped into two age ranges. Life Stage 1 women were 17-22 years of age, while Life Stage 2 women ranged from 23-40. Within each Life Stage, the women were further categorized into clinical and non-clinical groups. All of the participants were college students and/or working women from clerical, managerial, and professional occupations who were recruited from their respective schools, jobs and outpatient clinics. Each woman completed the test packet which included a demographic data questionnare; the Identity vis-a-vis Mother Questionnaie (IVM-20) developed by Crastnopol (1980); the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ) and Rotter1s Locus of Control Scale. The IVM-20 contains four scales, each designed to measure a unique mother-daughter relationship: Individuated (Ind), Symbiosis (Syra), Practicing (Prac) and Distancing (Dist). Ind is supposed to reflect a healthy autonomy with a loving mother-daughter bond, while Prac should represent ambivalence toward mother. Sym represents an overly dependent relationship and Dist was designed to measure an angry rejection of mother.

The incidence of both childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders is rising. A study of 422 undergraduate college females was undertaken using self report format to determine the incidence of childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders in a college population, and to determine the relationship between the two. In all, 57% of the women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual contact before the age of 14. Using the EDI-2 to assess risk of eating disorder development, 42% of these formerly abused women were found to be at risk for the development of an eating disorder. This was not found to be statistically different from the risk of eating disorder development experienced by the nonabused females in this population. However, there were differences found on the dimensions of Interpersonal Distrust, Interoceptive Awareness and Ineffectiveness, indicating that two of the major issues in eating disorder development for the abused women are trust both of themselves and of others, and self-esteem.