The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of how women experience midlife. Social constructionism, which fits within the postmodern tradition, was the epistemological framework informing this study. Participants were asked to provide their life stories in text form. Texts were interpreted using the hermeneutic method of analysis. The researcher attempted to understand the midlife experience from the perspective of each participant whose meaning, attitudes and ideas have developed within a social context, keeping in mind that the researcher's own social context, ideas and values affected the interpretation of the texts. The research results add a new perspective to the `grand narrative' of midlife as a `crisis'. The new `voice' speaks of the possibility of positive development - of overcoming adversity; taking control; re-assessing life; breaking old patterns; discovering peace; putting down roots; confronting reality; gaining independence and finding new meaning. / Psychology / MA (Clinical Psychology)

Teenage pregnancy is an ever increasing dilemma in South Africa. Dealing effectively with pregnant teenagers is a continuous challenge for the health care providers particularly the nursing staff. The present study focuses on the reproductive health care services in a Gauteng province clinic and pregnant teenagers' experiences of their interaction with the nursing staff. Six pregnant teenagers were included in the study. Data consistied of the participants' narratives regarding the health care services provided by the nursing staff. Themes from the narratives were identified and explored according to a Social Constructionism stance within the Postmodernist paradigm. Factors found to affect the experiences of the pregnant teenagers included acceptance, respect, effective communication, privacy, trust and the dedication and professionalism of the nursing staff. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

The purpose of this study was to define Philosophical Counselling (PC) or, more specifically, PC as practised in South Africa. This was done through allowing South African philosophical counsellors to tell their stories about PC. The epistemological framework was that of social constructionism. The study involved a series of in-depth interviews with three South African philosophical counsellors. The major themes that emerged from the participants’ stories seemed to centre around: the existential need for the other; the conceptual need for the other; engaging with the other methodically; and caring for the other. While their stories largely resonate with current and overwhelmingly European and North American conceptions of PC, they also seem to provide a uniquely South African impetus to revise these conceptions. Moreover, the findings of this study may facilitate a dialogue between philosophical counsellors and their colleagues in related professions, especially psychotherapists. / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

As TPM warrants greater attention in the field of practical theology, this thesis is about the further development of TPM, within Pastoral Theology as well as in its practices. This research explored if more healing possibilities may emerge when TPM is epistemologically positioned in social constructionism and has drawn attention to healing possibilities that narrative practices may open up for TPM. To achieve this, a process of social construction was followed where the narratives of participants' experiences of the practices of TPM were reflected upon. The participants related how and why the practices of TPM influenced the way they narrated their lives. According to their tales the main influencing factor was an authentic encounter with God, where they experienced that He had experientially entered into a conversation with them about the way they constructed their realities. By giving His perspective on their beliefs about memories from their past, He helped them to start processes of reconstructing new preferred life stories. The importance of the role of a faith community as well as that of significant others also became evident. An important contribution of this research is the emphasis that was put on the ‘not-knowing’ position of the facilitator. This is not an authentic TPM-term, but the way the facilitator's role is described, in the TPM guidelines, is similar to what is understood by that term in social constructionist therapy approaches. Throughout the research report I indicated the important role of this position in the helpfulness of TPM. It became clear through the narratives that when the facilitator's knowing entered the Theophostic process, the process was impeded. Closely related to this ‘not-knowing’ position, is the ethical accountability of TPM. I indicated how this position of the facilitator related to the participants' experiences of the facilitator not being judgemental and being respected for who (s)he is. In judging the authenticity of changes experienced by the recipients of TPM, I proposed a process of participatory ethics. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / Thesis (D.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)

This research focuses on the personal stories surrounding men who were sexually abused in childhood. The aim of this study is to shed light on the experiences of these men, and attempt to lift the veil of secrecy and stigma attached to male childhood sexual abuse. Three participants were selected for this qualitative study using the selection procedure of purposive sampling. Each participant was introduced with the use of a semi-structured interview format, and the information that was obtained from each participant was explored using a hermeneutic analysis approach. The results suggest that society’s naivety and ignorance of issues pertaining to sexually abused men are prominent. Both differences and similarities, in relation to the experiences of these men, are evident. With particular reference to the three participants whom partook in this study, the differing experiences that appear significant are suicidal ideation; low self-esteem; flashbacks; fear of men in general; and mind-body separation. The similar experiences that are evident within the participants’ stories are their desire for secrecy; fear of what society may think of them; desperate attempts to cope and subsequently escape the memories of their pasts; long-lasting effects, such as a lack of trust and an absence of intimacy; and determination to move forward and prevail. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Research indicates that the number of individuals diagnosed with neurological, learning and psychiatric disorders has shown a sharp increase in recent years. An increasing acknowledgement of the importance of narratives and discourses in constructing social reality has stimulated much debate on the consequences of diagnosing individuals with such diagnostic labels. The aim of this study was to explore the ways in which such individuals construct meaning from their experiences of adapting to their diagnostic labels by reframing them as interpersonal metaphors. In service of this aim, a social constructionist epistemology was adopted and discourse analysis was used to analyse the results from three participants’ interview data. The results indicate that participants managed to construct meaning from their experiences with their diagnostic labels through a reframing process that serve to promote positive perceptions of self in relation to others. Furthermore, this meaning-construction process appears to be a reflective and interactional one, in that it relies on a negotiation of meanings between people in a retrospective fashion. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study is an interpretive analysis of Zimbabwean political auto/biographical narratives in contexts of changing culture, race, ethnicity and gender identity images of the self and nation. I used eclectic theories of postcolonialism to explore the fractured nature of both the processes of identity construction and narration, and the contradictions inherent in identity categories of nation and self. The problem of using autobiographical memory to recall the momentous events that formed the contradictory identities of self and nation in the creative imagination of the lives of Ian Smith, Maurice Nyagumbo, Abel Muzorewa, Joshua Nkomo, Doris Lessing, Fay Chung, Judith Garfield Todd, Tendai Westerhof and Lutanga Shaba have been highlighted. The study concluded that there are narrative and ideological disjunctures between experiencing life and narrating those experiences to create approximations of coherent identities of individual selves and those of the nation. The study argued that each of the stories analyzed in this study contributed a version of the multiple Zimbabwean narratives that no one story could ever tell without being contested by others. Thus the study explores how white Rhodesian auto/biographies depend on the imperial repertoire to construct varying, even contradicting, images of white identities and the Rhodesian nation, which are also contested by black nationalist life narratives. The narratives by women writers, both white and black, introduced further instabilities to the male authored narratives by moving beyond the conventional understanding of what is ‘political’ in political auto/biographies. The HIV and AIDS narratives by black women thrust into the public sphere personalized versions of self so that the political consequence of their inclusion was not only to image Zimbabwe as a diseased society, but one desperately in need of political solutions to confront the different pathologies inherited from colonialism and which also have continued in the post-independence period. / English Studies / (D. Litt. et Phil. (English))

Workplace violence is reported to be on the increase, and within the South African Police Service, the inherently stressful nature of policing leads to high rates of suicide and violent behaviour. Contemporary investigations of workplace violence reveal epistemological, methodological and theoretical biases towards positivistic, rational-empirical approaches resulting in partial understandings and limited scope. This study aimed to qualitatively explore workplace violence as a socially embedded act. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a primary participant and three others directly related to him in order to supplement existing understandings from a social constructionist perspective. Discourse analysis allowed for discovery of socio-historically located discursive networks, while an ethnographic or empathic technique was used to gain insight into the life worlds of participants. Discourses of organisational negligence, betrayal and concurrent discourses of group solidarity and cohesion and organisational culpability reveal a reliance on external locus of control and avoidance coping. Discourses of absolution due to another‟s involvement, retribution, justice, and innocence perverted by a stronger agency relied on strategies of justification, denial, disclaimer, excuse or apology to negotiate positive participant identities. Discourses of masculinity allowed for a corroboration, justification and maintenance of male violence in general, and social discourses of female subjugation and commodification were used as a means to deflect responsibility and as justifications for actions of violence towards women. Inherent in all discourses was a deep socially and historically embedded conception that facilitates violent action as an expression of maleness in all spheres of life. From an ethnographic or empathic perspective, participants‟ world views were polarised around masculinity and femininity, suggesting that an ability to remain unemotional in situations of turmoil is a highly-prized characteristic of maleness, especially in a hypermasculine setting such as the police. The implicit and explicit approbation for the expression of masculine stoicism, as opposed to feminine or „weaker‟ emotions, causes recruits to experience isolation and shame if unable to face traumatic situations with the requisite dispassion, leading to negative coping mechanisms, depression, and suicide or violence. The conclusion can be drawn that prevention of violence relies on extrication of the concept of violence from masculinity at ideological, cultural and social levels within the SAPS, and the concurrent reduction in justificatory discourses reliant on an external locus of control. This has considerable implications, including the radical transformation of the organisation through the development of a clear vision of the future that can be supported by management, members and the community; the empowerment of employees through active participation in decisions and development of skills through training; rigorous modification of the practices that generate inequitable social conditions; and the revolution of cultural practices that venerate and enforce gendered inequalities. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Consulting Psychology)

Change directed at social justice has been partial at best because it leaves the larger unequal context and structures in place. Social work generally takes place in the context of unequal power relation on individual/cultural/structural levels. The inquiry’s aim is to broaden the perspective on change to facilitate social justice. A qualitative approach that is exploratory and descriptive with a flare of phenomenology was used. Anti-oppressive constructionist research is the point of departure. As such the research attempts to be consistent with values of equality where participants are partners and share in the creation of the inquiry. So in the beginning only preliminary questions designed to provide context and stimulate thought about change are explored. The goals and objectives of the inquiry are to discover and describe the perceptions of activists and literature thus expanding meanings of social justice and how it can be facilitated. In the inquiry, motivation to work for change, what is needed to facilitate social justice, what blocks change for social justice and the values and principles that underlie change for social justice are explored. The inquiry asks the question: How can social workers and the profession of social work facilitate change for social justice? / Social Work / D.Phil (Social Work)

In the existing literature, the constructs of "madness" and "woman' have long been associated with one another. This association has led to attempts by various authors, and also this current work, to deconstruct the constructs of madness and gender. The association between the constructs of "madness" and gender is seen in terms of metaphor. The relationship between the constructs of madness" and "woman" are described in terms of the manner in which meanings of metaphors of duality are collapsed onto one another. The approach to this discussion typifies the current shift in the human sciences from a belief in objective bias-neutral research to a new kind of self -conscious and sophisticated reality. I placed myself in this discussion as a researcher and a therapist, influenced by feminist, contextual and social constructionist ideas. The structure of this discussion was employed to reflect the theoretical perspectives mentioned above.therapist, influenced by feminist, contextual and social constructionist ideas. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)