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Causal modeling techniques were utilized to examine a theoretically induced coping model of resources, uncertainty and coping responses. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of five independent resource variables which included psychological resources, socio-community resources, marital role resources, parenting role resources and physical resources, and the influence of one situational variable, ambiguity, on the selection of differing coping decision responses, that is, minimizing stress behaviors, buffering situation behaviors and mobilizing infusion behaviors. The theoretical relationships of the constructs of resources, uncertainty and coping decisions were derived from the literature on coping, decisions under ambiguity and from a previous inductive study conducted with cancer patients by the investigator. The sample(s) selected for this study were patients previously treated for Stage I or II breast cancer and who were currently in remission within Pima County, Arizona, were of caucasian race and under 70 years of age. The sample was selected from patients treated or monitored from the Arizona Health Sciences Center, Department of Radiation-Oncology and Department of Hematology-Oncology and Kino Community Outpatient Cancer Clinic. Data was collected with an interviewer-administered questionnaire conducted in the subject's home and lasting approximately one hour. The data were analyzed by examining (1) the demographic characteristics, (2) correlations among the independent variables, (3) tests for causal assumptions, and (4) regression analysis of the theory model predictions. The evidence supports the original axiom that differential resources, namely, psychological, social and physical, account for an individual's differential selection of coping responses. Specifically, this study found that strong marital resources and a sense of mastery over the environment seems to deter the use of buffering behaviors; strong parenting role resources, physical resources and a self-denigrating attitude of one's self deter the use of mobilizing infusion behaviors. Specification errors included the probable dual dimensionality of the minimizing the mobilizing coping scales. Contributing variables that are absent in the model may include: social resource of occupation, disease and treatment staging, nature of the physician-patient relationship and the amount of accessible information and risk perceived in the situation. Measurement errors included the new reliability of the mastery scale, possible instrumentation error with the physical distress scale, and less than adequate scalability with the minimizing stress scale and mobilizing infusions scale, though these last two measurement errors could also be considered as misspecified variables. A multistaged empirical model of coping was generated from the findings of this study and will serve as the basis of further theory testing. An additional resource variable includes occupational role. Disease stage directly impacts the second stage of the coping model, uncertainty, which is expanded to include information and risk factors along with ambiguity. Coping responses in the third stage includes an additional category, taking direct action. The final stage of the model depicts the outcome of coping efficacy measured by increased psychological resources and reduced ambiguity.

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This two-year qualitative clinical study investigates the intea-psychic (within a person) and inter-relational (between people) effect of maternal ambivalence in female psychotherapy relationships. The participants are five, low-income single mothers, and I am the therapist researcher. Ambivalence describes the co-existence of loving and hating feelings. In traditional psychoanalytic theory, ambivalence originates in the developing infant's relationship to the mother and forms the basis of all adult relationships. A mother's experience of ambivalence is viewed as a regressive return to an earlier emotional experience with her mother. Maternal ambivalence is a feminist psychoanalytic concept developed by Parker (1995, 1997). Parker expands the Freudian and post-Freudian object relations concept of ambivalence using the perspective of the adult mother. In Parker's conceptualization of maternal ambivalence, a mother experiences feelings of ambivalence towards her infant and child that are not simply regressive, but are part of her normal adult development as a mother. Each mother's experiences and expressions of maternal ambivalence are affected by her social and cultural context of mothering. Each woman is consciously and unconsciously affected by her psychosocial constructions of maternal ambivalence and brings her beliefs and experiences into the clinical relationship. Through highlighting the narratives and interpreting the transference and counter-transference material, this study shows the impact of maternal ambivalence on the therapeutic alliance of women working with women in clinical social work. The therapeutic alliance refers to the quality of the relational bond between the therapist and client. This population of mothers was selected because they represent a significant group of clients seen in various clinical social work Dangerous Connections settings, such as youth protection, non-profit counseling agencies, and community centers. In this manuscript-based thesis, I present two of my participants' cases as an indepth exploration of my research process, its analysis, and the applicable theories I used. This research process indicates that in seeking to develop a more culturally and gender sensitive clinical practice and therapeutic connections, social workers may benefit from reflectively challenging their internalized psychosocial idealizations and denigrations of motherhood.

This work examines the use of psychoanalytic terms and concepts in postcolonial theory, with attention to the social and historical contexts in which those terms and models originated. The thesis provides an overview of the different academic and political contexts out of which postcolonial theory evolved, focusing on how identity came to be a central term within postcolonial debates. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Anne McClintock, it critiques the current use of psychoanalytic models by postcolonial theorists, arguing that psychoanalysis is itself implicated in the history of European imperialism and brings with it concomitant assumptions about the nature of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The thesis provides an overview of the work of Charcot, Freud and Lacan. It takes up some of their major contributions to psychoanalysis, and discusses the social and political contexts in which those works were developed. The thesis goes on to provide a detailed analysis of the intersection of postcolonial theory and psychoanalysis in the work of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Helene Cixous. The thesis concludes by discussing what I view as the two major ethical and intellectual problems that arise from the use of psychoanalysis in postcolonial theory. I argue, first, that psychoanalysis developed within the same cultural and political context as European colonialism. In spite of its moments of self-consciousness, psychoanalysis, nonetheless, reproduces some of the models of identity that supported European imperialism, both in Europe and abroad. Secondly, I argue that psychoanalysis takes, at root, a pessimistic view of human nature and this pessimism is fundamentally at odds with the emancipatory motives of postcolonial theory.

This study explores the facilitation of preparation for breast cancer surgery. The aim of the study was to develop a reasonably comprehensive scheme of categories that would describe, from the perspective of women with breast cancer, what facilitates or hinders positive psychological preparation for breast cancer surgery and, therefore, identify and conceptually organize a broad array of these experiences. The research method involved interviews with 30 women who underwent an operation for breast cancer 6-12 months prior to their interviews. The Critical Incident Technique was used to collect and analyze the data. The women were interviewed and asked to recall incidents that were helpful or hindering in their preparation for a breast cancer surgery. A total of 362 incidents from 30 participants were collected, analyzed, and placed into categories. These incidents were organized into twenty-three categories: Receiving Educational Materials and/or Information; Obtaining an Explanation of Medical Procedures or Problems; Discussing Problems with Loved One; Getting Support and Encouragement from Others; Being Accompanied to a Medical Appointment; Helping Others; Engaging Oneself in Physical and Creative Activities; Developing Helpful Habits; Taking Action on Realizing Own Mortality; Experiencing Physical Closeness; Experiencing Deep Emotional Closeness; Realizing Shift in Relationship with Loved Ones; Healing Through Spiritual Experience and Visualization; Changing Perspective Through Comparison; Using Inspiring, Comforting Material; Getting Alternative Treatment; Establishing Professional Communication; Waiting for Medical Results; Sharing Experiences in Support Groups and Counseling; Perceiving Professional Manners; Experiencing Positive Medical Settings; Getting a Recommendation/Approval of Medical Personnel, Questioning Competence of Medical Care or Personnel. The data also included information about participants' decision-making process regarding the type of operation for breast cancer and some observations on them were drawn. Several procedures were used to examine validity, soundness and trustworthiness of the categories and subcategories. Three narrative accounts were analyzed in an effort to provide meaning and action to these categories. The findings of this study may serve as a basis for better understanding of the process of preparation for breast cancer surgery. Through further examination of the categories and narratives some suggestions and recommendation for research and practice were made.

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