published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Bildterapeutiskt arbete kan vara ett sätt att stärka psykisk hälsa. Lite är dock skrivet om upplevelsen att använda sig av bildskapande i självhjälpsgrupper. Föreliggande studie avsåg att undersöka detta. Respondenter var fem deltagare samt projektansvarig bildterapeut med erfarenheter från självhjälpsgrupper innehållande fritt bildskapande och samtal. Intervjuer genomfördes och analyserades genom tematisk analys. Tre teman framkom (Personlig utveckling, Bildskapandet samt Sammanhang) innehållande tolv kategorier (Agentskap/empowerment, Att utmana sig själv, Ökad livskvalité, Lust, Kravlöshet/prestigelöshet, Bildens symboliska värde, Nya verktyg, Bearbetning/insikter, Flow, Gemenskap med andra, Kulturen i vården och samhället samt Lokalens betydelse). Resultatet indikerar att deltagarna upplevt ökad hälsa, större agentskap och gemenskap där bildskapandet varit en viktig del. Ytterligare forskning behövs dock för att styrka sambandet mellan bildskapande och ökat välmående. / Working with art therapy can be a way to enhance psychic health. However little is written about the experience of using art therapy in self-help groups. The present study intended to explore that. Respondents were five participants and the project leading art therapist with experiences from self-help groups containing free imaging and talk. Interviews were made and analysed through thematic analyses. Three themes emerged (Personal development, Imaging and Context), containing twelve categories (Agency/empowerment, Challenging yourself, Increased quality of life, Desire, Permissiveness/ unpretentiousness, Symbolic value of image, New tooles, Processing/ insights, Flow, Community with others, Culture in care and society and Importance of premises). The result indicates that the participants experienced an increase in health, self-efficacy and fellowship. Additional research is however needed to confirm possible connections between art therapy and increased health.

ABSTRACT Low income housing delivery still remains a challenge in Botswana. The government initiated various programmes to address this problem and the Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) is one of those programmes. This is an exclusive programme limited only to a prescribed low income group. While SHHA has proved to offer opportunities in sustainable low income housing delivery (due to the complimentary roles played by government and beneficiaries), housing problems still persist especially for the low income households. This, to a certain extent, is due to shortcomings within the programme. Any recommendations to address those shortcomings will enable government to achieve its objectives in low income housing delivery.

Thesis. 1978. M.Arch.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.Arch.

Hong, Liu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-244). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Research background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Self-help as a social phenomenon in Western and Chinese societies --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Impacts of self-help groups --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- An issue demanding attention: maintenance and development of self-help groups --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research objectives --- p.9 / Chapter 1.3 --- Initial guiding questions --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Sketching a Conceptual Framework --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Literature Review --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Group maintenance and development --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Dynamics of self-help groups --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- External forces influencing self-help groups --- p.32 / Chapter 2.2 --- Conceptual framework --- p.40 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Theory-use in current study --- p.40 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Conceptual framework --- p.41 / Chapter 2.3 --- Refining the research questions --- p.42 / Chapter 2.4 --- Definitions of key terms in the research question --- p.45 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Self-help groups --- p.45 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Maintenance and development --- p.45 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- Social workers --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Research Design and Implementation --- p.48 / Chapter 3.1 --- Research design --- p.48 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Philosophical consideration --- p.48 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Methodological justification --- p.50 / Chapter 3.2 --- Case study design --- p.52 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Overall design: embedded contrasting multiple-case (two cases) study --- p.52 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- "Unit of analysis, subunit of analysis and context of case" --- p.54 / Chapter 3.3 --- Case selection --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4 --- Implementation --- p.57 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- General process of implementation --- p.57 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Data collection --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Data analysis --- p.61 / Chapter 3.4.4 --- Quality of study --- p.65 / Chapter 3.5 --- Ethical consideration --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Case A: Within-Case Data Display and Analysis --- p.70 / Chapter 4.1 --- Chronicle of Case A --- p.70 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Pre-formalized stage: before SCMC Parents Group --- p.72 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Formalized stage: SCMC Parents Group --- p.74 / Chapter 4.2 --- Difficulties encountered by the group on the factors contributing to the maintenance and development in Case A --- p.81 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Leadership --- p.82 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Membership --- p.89 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Practical difficulties: logistics and finance --- p.96 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Professional Involvement --- p.101 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Affiliation --- p.105 / Chapter 4.2.6 --- Legitimacy --- p.115 / Chapter 4.3 --- Responding to research question 1: what are the difficulties? --- p.124 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Difficulty on leadership: indistinct leadership structure --- p.124 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Difficulty on membership: shortage of new core members --- p.125 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Difficulty on practical issue: tight finance --- p.126 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Difficulty on affiliation: reserved support from the hospital --- p.126 / Chapter 4.3.5 --- Difficulty on legitimacy: unachieved out-hospital legitimacy --- p.127 / Chapter 4.4 --- "Responding to research question 2 & 3: how are the difficulties mutually linked, and linked with the maintenance and development of the groups?" --- p.129 / Chapter 4.5 --- Role of social work profession --- p.134 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Social work practice in SCMC --- p.134 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Involvement of social workers in the parents group --- p.136 / Chapter 4.5.3 --- Expectations from the medical staff --- p.138 / Chapter 4.5.4 --- Social workers or administrators? --- p.139 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- Case B: Within-Case Data Display and Analysis --- p.142 / Chapter 5.1 --- Chronicle of case B --- p.142 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Before establishment --- p.143 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- After ICCCPO Shanghai conference --- p.144 / Chapter 5.2 --- Difficulties encountered by the group on the factors contributing to the maintenance and development in Case B --- p.150 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Leadership --- p.150 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Membership --- p.159 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Practical issues: logistics and finance --- p.165 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Professional involvement --- p.172 / Chapter 5.2.5 --- Affiliation --- p.174 / Chapter 5.2.6 --- Legitimacy --- p.179 / Chapter 5.3 --- Responding to research question 1: what are the difficulties? --- p.187 / Chapter 5.4 --- "Responding to research question 2 & 3: how are the difficulties mutually linked, and linked with the maintenance and development of the groups?" --- p.191 / Chapter Chapter Six: --- Case Synthesis --- p.196 / Chapter 6.1 --- Comparing the two cases --- p.196 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Commonalities --- p.196 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Differences --- p.198 / Chapter 6.2 --- Controlled comparison --- p.198 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Controlling the factors --- p.198 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Making comparison --- p.199 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Results of comparison --- p.203 / Chapter 6.3 --- Uncontrolled comparisons --- p.204 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- "Affiliation, host organizations, and Finance" --- p.205 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Affiliation and Out-hospital Legitimacy --- p.209 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Out-hospital Legitimacy and Finance --- p.210 / Chapter Chapter Seven: --- "Conclusions, Discussions，Implications，and Limitations" --- p.211 / Chapter 7.1 --- Conclusions --- p.211 / Chapter 7.2 --- Discussions --- p.213 / Chapter 7.2.1 --- Members and leader in the self-help groups: “free-riders´ح and “bum-out´ح --- p.213 / Chapter 7.2.2 --- Group legitimacy and affiliation in the Chinese context --- p.216 / Chapter 7.2.3 --- Professional involvement: medical staff and social workers --- p.219 / Chapter 7.3 --- Implications --- p.223 / Chapter 7.3.1 --- Implications for social work practice --- p.223 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- Implications for social work education --- p.225 / Chapter 7.3.3 --- Implications for social policy --- p.226 / Chapter 7.3.4 --- Implications for future research --- p.229 / Chapter 7.4 --- Limitations --- p.230 / Reference --- p.232

The search for balance in my life reflects my attitude towards life itself. In seeking balance, in juggling my strengths and weaknesses, my joys and my sorrows, I seek affirmation that I am living the life I want to live. This thesis offers my own definition of balance, and outlines why it is important and how it manifests itself in my life. In examining my own story, I offer lessons to those who seek balance in their own lives. Without being prescriptive, these lessons illuminate my own views while reminding me to live life my way. What is work/ life balance? What role does exercise play in finding balance? What can we learn from losing a loved one? Can we re-examine how to explore life’s big decisions? Why is important to always have something to look forward to? And why would someone want to study this topic? By approaching these questions using Scholarly Personal Narrative, I invite the wisdom of other scholars to influence my own views. Yet while these scholars – and the equally important wisdom from friends and loved ones – help shape my perspective, the stories I offer are, ultimately, my own. Through these stories, through my “lessons to myself,” I seek equanimity and clarity in my approach to life.

No description available.

The purpose of the present research was to examine and understand, within a cultural context, the subjective experiences of recovery from child abuse of adults who have not sought the help of mental health professionals. Examining the cultural context of recovery permitted a glance at the environmental climate in which people came to understand, respond, and make sense of their child abuse experiences. To achieve this objective, dominant themes regarding beliefs about recovery were gathered from cultural documents, specifically, popular books on recovery from abuse, and from individual accounts of recovery from abuse. The present study was qualitative in nature and conducted within the framework of an ethnographic inquiry. The data were content analysed for themes of recovery. A comparison of recovery themes in popular books and participant interviews revealed that participants descriptions of their recovery mirrored those described by popular books, with a few exceptions. Factors considered helpful for recovery which emerged from both sources included education/information, relationships (e.g., support and resolution), attending to ones feelings and beliefs about the abuse (e.g, re-experiencing), self-care (e.g., coping with stress), and spirituality. In both popular books and participant stories, value was placed on the survivor looking inward, and differentiating oneself, ones feelings and beliefs, from those of others. This orientation served to delineate clear boundaries from others, and to allow one to assert oneself and to develop an independent view of oneself (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). As such, it reflects Canadian/American cultural values of agency, autonomy, and personal control (Kirsh & Kuiper, 2002). The participants experiences of recovery enabled them to reconstruct their views of themselves, their abusers, and people in general, in a way that enabled them to assert their differences and distinct values from others. Although support was emphasized, its role was confined to helping the participants gain new understanding of their experiences. Their disclosures of abuse experiences to supportive others were guided less by the need to create harmony or to fit in with an in-group, as would be expected in collectivist societies, than it was by the need to assert oneself, ones feelings, and ones needs. Also, participants accounts of recovery illustrated that they were relatively well versed in the use of psychological terms and concepts such as grief, confrontation, self-esteem, and role-models that were common in the popular books. The participants developed new views of themselves which were geared toward developing a more self-enhancing sense of self. These shifts reflect a discourse common in psychology and self-help culture, which directs the individual toward self-actualization, heightened self-esteem, and increased autonomy (Starker, 1989). This study also demonstrated how, through their own personal resourcefulness, people can be agents of their own recovery. Participants accessed unique resources (e.g., participating in sports, parenting, religion) to make sense of their experiences. In some cases, participants focussed more on drawing meaning from these self-enhancing resources than they did on re-experiencing painful memories associated with the abuse. Given the emphasis on re-experiencing trauma in clinical and popular literature, the various routes taken by participants suggest that the process of re-experiencing may be over-emphasized. Further research on recovery, outside of the therapeutic context, may serve to clarify how self-recovery takes place, possibly contributing to a new discourse on recovery.

The purpose of the present research was to examine and understand, within a cultural context, the subjective experiences of recovery from child abuse of adults who have not sought the help of mental health professionals. Examining the cultural context of recovery permitted a glance at the environmental climate in which people came to understand, respond, and make sense of their child abuse experiences. To achieve this objective, dominant themes regarding beliefs about recovery were gathered from cultural documents, specifically, popular books on recovery from abuse, and from individual accounts of recovery from abuse. The present study was qualitative in nature and conducted within the framework of an ethnographic inquiry. The data were content analysed for themes of recovery. A comparison of recovery themes in popular books and participant interviews revealed that participants descriptions of their recovery mirrored those described by popular books, with a few exceptions. Factors considered helpful for recovery which emerged from both sources included education/information, relationships (e.g., support and resolution), attending to ones feelings and beliefs about the abuse (e.g, re-experiencing), self-care (e.g., coping with stress), and spirituality. In both popular books and participant stories, value was placed on the survivor looking inward, and differentiating oneself, ones feelings and beliefs, from those of others. This orientation served to delineate clear boundaries from others, and to allow one to assert oneself and to develop an independent view of oneself (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). As such, it reflects Canadian/American cultural values of agency, autonomy, and personal control (Kirsh & Kuiper, 2002). The participants experiences of recovery enabled them to reconstruct their views of themselves, their abusers, and people in general, in a way that enabled them to assert their differences and distinct values from others. Although support was emphasized, its role was confined to helping the participants gain new understanding of their experiences. Their disclosures of abuse experiences to supportive others were guided less by the need to create harmony or to fit in with an in-group, as would be expected in collectivist societies, than it was by the need to assert oneself, ones feelings, and ones needs. Also, participants accounts of recovery illustrated that they were relatively well versed in the use of psychological terms and concepts such as grief, confrontation, self-esteem, and role-models that were common in the popular books. The participants developed new views of themselves which were geared toward developing a more self-enhancing sense of self. These shifts reflect a discourse common in psychology and self-help culture, which directs the individual toward self-actualization, heightened self-esteem, and increased autonomy (Starker, 1989). This study also demonstrated how, through their own personal resourcefulness, people can be agents of their own recovery. Participants accessed unique resources (e.g., participating in sports, parenting, religion) to make sense of their experiences. In some cases, participants focussed more on drawing meaning from these self-enhancing resources than they did on re-experiencing painful memories associated with the abuse. Given the emphasis on re-experiencing trauma in clinical and popular literature, the various routes taken by participants suggest that the process of re-experiencing may be over-emphasized. Further research on recovery, outside of the therapeutic context, may serve to clarify how self-recovery takes place, possibly contributing to a new discourse on recovery.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-134).