The research within this thesis has been concerned with the concept of individual lability and how this may impact the occurrence of psychokinetic (PK) effects. Although frequently used as a descriptor within the fields of psychology, parapsychology has attempted to explore individual lability as a construct in its own right. Defined as an 'ease of change', within parapsychological research individual lability has been afforded the ability to either act as a contributing or mediating factor in the production of PK effects. To that effect, a major concern for this thesis was to operationalize the construct of individual lability via the development of a psychometric measure - an initial Lability Scale and then a further Revised Lability Scale. In order to make sense of the theoretical assumptions about individual lability this thesis explores the background of the production of PK effects in both real-world and experimental environments. It identifies shared individual elements in the reports of PK effects relating to heightened arousal, neurological activity, personality traits, emotional states and creativity that may help to identify multiple dimensions of individual lability. Drawing on the perspectives of lability models which emphasize an interaction between differing lability levels of random systems as a predictor of PK effects, it is suggested that successful outcomes are more likely between high levels of one system and low levels of another system. For the purposes of the three empirical studies a Random Number Generator (RNG) with different levels of Table, Pseudo and Live were employed to explore this interaction. An initial online survey consisting of measures of creative, neurological, state and Openness to Experience enabled the creation of the 71-item, 5 factor Lability Scale (LS) using factor analysis. Factors were defined as: Intuitive Cognition, Conceptual Cognition, Ego-Orientated Cognition, Emotional Interpretation and Analytical Cognition. The LS had good internal reliability and did not correlate with additional measures of anomalous experience and PK experiences, thus demonstrating face-value validity. The LS was subsequently employed in a series of three PK-RNG experiments exploring the lability interaction which incorporated a standardised design of a computerised I Ching task measured using the Q-sort method and separate group samples (N = 50). Study One included the impact of perceived stress, Study Two included the impact of the participant/research interaction, Study Three included the impact of goal-orientated striving. The primary hypothesis that levels of individual lability (Low, Medium, High) would significantly interact with Q-sort ratings of RNG system lability was not supported for all three experiments. In addition, the impact of the additional variables was non-significant. However, significant correlations were found between all of the LS factors apart from Analytical Cognition. It was also observed that there was a significant difference between lability levels between genders, with males on average having lower lability levels. In addition, a final analysis combining the individual and RNG lability data from all three studies was conducted, although there was also no significant interaction effect found between levels of individual and RNG lability. However, following the consistent lack of response from the Analytical Cognition factor it was deemed necessary to psychometrically refine the Lability Scale further. Therefore, a second factor analysis was conducted on the combined experimental data (N = 147) and the 32-item, 3 factor Revised Lability Scale was developed. Three identified factors were defined as: Creative Expression, Emotional Interpretation and Spiritual Interpretation. It was noted that the factor structure was somewhat reversed to that of the initial LS but the majority of items remained consistent. However, analysis showed that there was no interaction found between levels of individual lability and RNG lability. There were significant relationships between Creative Expression and Table RNG and Pseudo RNG lability levels. In addition, consistent difference between the genders in relation to the three factors were found with large effect sizes, with males having significantly lower levels overall. The final Discussion questioned the lack of significant findings for the lability PK-RNG interaction in relation to the complexity of the methodology and the multiple variables introduced in the empirical studies.

D.Ed. / Art lecturers affiliated to a tertiary institute observed the occurrence of negative emotional content and expression in the artwork of their students. These students are also inclined to manifest negative behavioural and interaction patterns. The lecturers appealed for this research as a method to determine what the content of the expressed artwork indicate. The request was for the research methods to proceed within an art framework in order for it to be applied as a class project. The research proceeded with the use of art as a projection medium, applied during the process of facilitative interaction. The aim was to determine the degree to which the projected content in the young adults' artwork correlate with their personal life- and experiential world. The young adults were requested to write spontaneous sketches depicting the story of their life. The information was passed on to a graphologist for the analysis of their handwriting. The findings of the graphologist was later applied as external triangulation in order to verify the identified themes obtained from the analysis. With the aid of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction, it has been determined that the young adults struggle with unresolved trauma as a result of abuse. The exposure to abuse resulted in barriers influencing their relationships with others as well as themselves. The barriers manifest as experiences of pain and confusion; mistrust and isolation; aggression and depression. The research resulted in the development of a model for educational psychologists equipping them to identify and address unresolved trauma with young adults through the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction. The development of the model proceeded in four stages. During stage one concepts were identified, defined and classified after completion of the fieldwork. The sample included 30 respondents from different cultures ranging from ages 18 to 24. The collection of data proceeded with the use of art as projection medium involving the following - a Gestalt-therapeutic exercise: the drawing of a rosebush, in-depth interviews, the analysis of cartoons and the writing of spontaneous sketches on unlineated paper for graphological analysis. The model of Guba was used to ensure trustworthiness in qualitative methodology. This refers to the credibility, transferability, reliability and verification of the research. In step two the relationship between concepts was drawn, after which step three followed, involving the description of the model. Guidelines in operationalising the model, are stated in step four. The model aims at the empowerment of young adults suffering from unresolved childhood trauma, with the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction. During this process the young adults are guided to an enhanced self-awareness in order for self-insight and self-empowerment to develop so that mental health can be obtained. The power of the model lies in the continuous plotting taking place through the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction.

M.A. / Since 1994, there have been various changes in social work in South Africa, changes that reflect developments in international social work. Social workers are described as generalist practitioners, who must be able to address their clients’ problems on different levels of service delivery and drawing on an eclectic range of theories and intervention models. Trauma is a definite reality in South Africa and only one of many problems that social workers face. Eye Movement Integration Therapy (EMI) is a therapy that has its roots in neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Steve and Connirae Andreas researched the possible link between eye movements and therapeutic growth. Subsequently EMI was developed to facilitate the reduction of trauma symptoms. Danie Beaulieu studied under the Andreas’s and developed the technique further. According to contemporary research, the amygdala is responsible for storing trauma memories. These memories are fragmented, as they are stored in the sensory modalities and have no narrative. The precise mechanisms of EMI are still unknown. It appears, however, that EMI, with its 22 eye movements, assists with the integration of fragmented trauma memories. The effectiveness of EMI with the adult population has been studied, but not its usefulness with children. The goal of this study was therefore to explore the usefulness of EMI in overcoming childhood trauma. A sample of 12 children, aged 14-16 years, who had experienced trauma, underwent a single session of EMI with the researcher. A multi-method approach was utilised as both qualitative and quantitative methods were implemented. The quantitative component took the form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) administered before and after the single EMI session. The qualitative component of this study had two parts, namely a semi-structured interview with the parents/caregivers of the children conducted after the EMI session, and a journal that the researcher kept throughout the data collection process. The study found that EMI effectively and significantly reduced the trauma symptoms of the respondents. The successful clinical application of the intervention with children also showed that EMI is a useful technique in the recovery from childhood trauma.

South Africa as a country is known for its high crime rate which produces an ongoing traumatising environment for its multicultural nation. Posttraumatic stress disorder in the general South African population is thought to be more prevalent than most international norms which make this topic both relevant and important. Cultural diversity is seen to play a role in the experience of PTSD which means that it has become important to gain an understanding of the potential effect of the individual’s cultural background on the processing of a traumatic experience and the symptoms related to the experience. The proposed research focused on appraisals of the traumatic event and symptoms (in schematic and cultural terms). An interpretive (with current cognitive conceptions of the disorder as guiding theory) phenomenological approach was used. The sample consisted of eight isiXhosa-speaking adults that qualified for a diagnosis of PTSD with no prior psychiatric diagnosis. Data was gathered using a semi-structured interview and analysed using the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Results indicated that participants understood their PTSD symptoms in a functional manner but struggled to make sense of their traumatic event. Not understanding their traumatic event was the variable that maintained their PTSD diagnosis. Most of the interpretations made by these participants were fairly universal and there were very few links to content that can directly be attributed to a traditional African worldview. Practitioners may not need to completely reinvent the wheel as far as treatment strategies for PTSD for isiXhosa-speaking individuals in an urban setting go.

The false/ recovered memory debate has highlighted the complexities involved in assessing the validity of memories for emotional childhood events. This dissertation begins by tracing the history of the dominant school of thought on memory, the spatial perspective, as well as far less conspicuous reconstructive views, and challenges influential modern spatial views (e.g., repression) in light of a more defensible reconstructive model. The empirical component of this dissertation was designed to compare the nature of real, created, and fabricated childhood memories for emotional events within individuals. The critical issues being addressed in the experiment were: (1) whether people could come to remember false ("created") memories for emotional events; (2) if so, whether differences existed between created memories and real and/or intentionally lied about (fabricated) memories, and; (3) whether there were individual differences in susceptibility to created memories. Using a variation of an approach developed by Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995), a questionnaire was forwarded to participants' parents inquiring about six categories of negative emotional events (serious medical procedure, serious animal attack, getting seriously hurt by another child, serious indoor accident, serious outdoor accident, and getting lost) which the participant may or may not have experienced between the ages of 4 and 10 years. Parents were asked to describe each event which had occurred and to give a number of specific pieces of information relating to the event. Based on the questionnaire information (85% response rate), 77 participants were interviewed about each of a: (1) real event; (2) false event; and (3) fabricated event, in three weekly-spaced interviews. Over the three interviews, the interviewers attempted to implant a created memory for the false emotional event using encouragement, context reinstatement, guided imagery, and instructing daily recall attempts. In the first interview, participant were asked about the real event and the false event (counterbalanced), each introduced as a true event. They were provided the event tide and four specific pieces of information to cue their memories (their age, location, season/ month, and people present), based on questionnaire information (contrived for the false events). In the second interview, participants were re-interviewed about their memories for the false event followed by the implantation procedure. In the third interview, participants were again interviewed about the false event with the same interview approach. Finally (after the last attempt at recalling the false event), they were provided written instructions to fabricate a childhood memory, again with an event category and four information clues, given preparation rime and a monetary incentive, and interviewed about the fabricated event with the same format as the other two memory types. Following transcription of the two or three (if a created memory had emerged) final memory reports, the memories were compared on several dependent measures, collectively designated the Memory Assessment Procedure (MAP), relating to their subjective and presentation characteristics. Participants were then asked to complete a Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) questionnaire to examine if susceptibility to created memories was related to a general dissociative cognitive pattern. Results indicated that twenty (26%) of participants created complete memories for the false emotional events (seven animal attacks, five instances of getting seriously hurt by another child, four serious outdoor accidents, three episodes of getting lost, and one medical procedure). Furthermore, 29.9% of participants reported some false information pertaining to the false event ("partial" memories), for a total of 55.9% of participants recalling information relating to the false event. The remaining participants (44.2%) reported no information pertaining to the false event. There were several interesting differences among the three memory types, including stress ratings, vividness/ clarity ratings, confidence ratings, coherence, number of details, repeated details, and memory failures. For example, when relating a created memory, participants were less confident and the memories were less vivid and detailed compared to the other memory types, but similar in sensory components and relevancy. On the other hand, participants were highly confident in their fabricated memories which were rated as highly stressful and vivid, and the memories were detailed. However, when relating a fabricated memory, participants repeated details and were less willing to admit lacking memory, relative to real memories. Other findings are reported on the origin of the created memories, age factors, memory perspective, reasons provided for first forgetting the false event, and post-interview confidence in the created memories. On the DES , participants who had come up with a partial or a created memory scored, on average, about twice as high as those participants who had recalled no false information, indicating that susceptibility to memory distortion may be related to a general dissociative pattern. This was the largest scale created memory study to date and the first to look at a variety of emotional childhood events and the content of the memories. Implications of the findings for the false memory debate and memory assessment in forensic contexts are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Charles Baxter, in his essay “Dysfunctional Narratives: or: ‘Mistakes Were Made,’” implies that all trauma narrative is synonymous with “dysfunctional narrative,” or narrative that leaves all characters unaccountable. He writes: “In such fiction, people and events are often accused of turning the protagonist into the kind of person the protagonist is, usually an unhappy person. That’s the whole story. When blame has been assigned, the story is over.” For Baxter, trauma narrative lets everyone “off the hook,” so to speak. He would say that we write about our bitter lemonade to make excuses for our poor choices, and “audiences of fellow victims” read our tales, because their lemonade and their choices carry equal bitterness, and they require equal excuses. While trauma narrative can soothe us, as can other narrative genres, we should not dismiss trauma fiction because of a sweeping generalization. Trauma fiction also allows us to explore the missing parts of our autobiographical narratives and to explore the effects of trauma—two endeavors not fully possible without fiction. As explained in more detail later, the human mind requires narrative to formulate an identity. Trauma disrupts this process, because “trauma does not lie in the possession of the individual, to be recounted at will, but rather acts as a haunting or possessive influence which not only insistently and intrusively returns but is, moreover, experienced for the first time only in its belated repetition.” Because literature can speak what “theory cannot say,” we need fiction to speak in otherwise silent spaces. Fiction allows us to express, analyze, and comprehend what we could not otherwise.

Submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree in Community Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Zululand, 2003. / "To penetrate the mysteries, to bless with good conscience, to be great yet empty, to return to stillness and be forgiven, to do good deeds and help people reach the other shore — these are the great benefits of our path of cultivation. To calm people in stormy times, to help them understand the nature of things, to maintain purity, to nourish all things, to respect all life, and to answer the needs of those whose beliefs come from the heart — The sun rises, the darkness is banished; and we are witness to true wonder" (The Religion of Light, 1005). Research in the area of clerical paedophilia in the Catholic Church initially focused on managing the problem at the level of treatment intervention, with treatment centres run by religious orders in the UK and USA. Protocols have been developed worldwide to deal with reports or complaints against Catholic clergy who have allegedly interfered sexually with a child. Yet consideration and evaluation of this intervention clearly highlights the 'after the fact' nature of intervention. Leaders of the Catholic Church are certainly aware of the need for the prevention of mental ill-health, and the promotion of mental health in their ranks. However, it is the negative and vast publicity given to child molestation, and the immediate damage inflicted on the Catholic Church, that has resulted in a 'mop-up operation' rather than an exploration of causes and interventions aimed at prevention and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Recently, however, psychologists and philosophers, who have been called on to evaluate the problem in the USA, the UK, Southern Africa, and Australia, have been asking questions such as: Why does this happen in the Catholic Church? Or, more to the point, what needs to be done about it? My guiding hypothesis for the research was: Do Catholic priests constitute a high-risk category for mental ill-health? As regards the second question — what is to be done? — I propose the establishment of a Community Health Centre for Catholic clergy. My research addresses both questions. As regards the first question, the evidence — gathered through interviews and workshops over a period of eight years — points to the conclusion that paedophilia is not purely a problem of intra-psychic factors but also a symptom of the closed and isolated nature of the Catholic institution, whose structures both attract and give life to, otherwise possibly latent pathology. In addition, many priests — young and old — feel unheard and misunderstood, and perceive themselves to have been inadequately trained and poorly supported and managed. It is possible that, combining both intra-psychic repression and institutional suppression, the potential for a disaster such as the crisis the Catholic Church faces today, is created. The community of Catholic priests is perhaps not conceptualized, nor cared for, as a community of male human beings. It is precisely a working model of this community care for Catholic priests, that is being explored in this thesis. This thesis presents a working model - or a work in progress — where any assessment is related to healing and therapeutic intervention, in intentionality and orientation.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Zululand, 1993. / The aim of this study was: * To describe the inadequate self—actualization of the psychic life of the child due to the influence of violence. * To describe changes in society that have caused a breakdown in the pedagogic relationship between parents and children. * To determine, from the findings obtained, certain guidelines according to which accountable support could be instituted in order to meet the needs of the under—actualized child. The study primarily attempts to outline current thinking and research on how violence effects the under—actualizing of the child. The high incidence of violence marked by its intensity and severity in societies, has been a cause of great concern to educationists. Various studies of strife torn areas like Northern Ireland, Israel, etc., indicate that where societies have been exposed to the culture of violence for some decades, the quality of life in those areas is marginalized. Where violence 1ingers on, it is characterized by its appeal to the "youth population" predominantly, and the children unfortunately bear the brunt of its corrosive scourge. The Republic of South Africa has been no exception, where the Black townships and rural areas have been plagued and entrapped by the culture of violence since 1976. In the life of a Black child the educational environment is beset by a variety of impediments that emanate from rapid social changes that have broken down his traditional cultural structures - The ensuing violence disintegrated all forms of the fami1ial anchorage and the priceless parent-chi Id relationship of love, understanding, trust and authority. From the study it becomes clear that the onslaught of the dynamics of social change and violence have a deleterious effect on the quality of the upbringing of the child- From a psycho pedagogic perspective the impeded child finds himself in a dysfunctional educational situation because he lacks responsible parental or adult assistance and guidance toward his difficult goal of attaining adulthood. This implies that the psychic life of the impeded child is under-actualized where there is no adult intervention based on the principle of understanding, trust and authority underpinned by caring love. The child's exposure and predisposition to the culture of violence blunts the child’s perceptions and feelings, and as he becomes desensitized, he lacks understanding the true realities of life. As the child needs self—confidence and a sense of worthiness, he regards himself as a failure. To neutralize these perplexing factors in the child's life, accountable support systems for him and his parents are the mast expedient forms of intervention. Meaningful intervention by the school guidance tutor (counselor) or the personnel from the Educational Psychological Support Services or the school social workers who can pool their support programmes and rehabilitative strategies to restore the child * s and his parents' confidence, the parents must be fully involved in the rehabilitative projects in the school and in the community. They must liaise with pupils, teachers, and members of the community. In the light of the findings of this study, the following was recommended: * Cultural leaders must re-establish and meaning¬fully faster efficient functioning of the nuclear family. * Educational Psychological Support Services (EPSS) must be established and earnestly developed in al1 Black schools. * All politicians and members of the clergy should forthwith, desist from interfering and delaying the implementation of a culture of learning.

Lion in Summer & Other Beasts is an investigation into point of view, place and the fragment. Many of the characters are searching for a sense of home outside of their birthplace, in cities such as New York City, Charleston, Portland and Tel Aviv. Major themes include alienation, love and trauma.

This is a collection of two stories, one fiction and one non-fiction, in communication with one another. Both stories explore how trauma can transform a life. In "Tabula Rasa," Mena is unable to recall her past after being beaten and left for dead. She must choose whether to uncover her past or forget it and move forward with her life. Set in a town run by witches, Mena learns that both choices are dangerous. In "Eternal Second," the narrator recounts the aftermath of her husband's suicide. She explores how trauma invades all aspects of her life. In both stories, women must navigate a new life created by the destruction of the old one.