Competency assessment and evaluation for all psychological therapies are now a common requirement. Recent international research studies have resulted in the development of the phrase ‘death competence’ as “tolerating and managing clients’ problems related to dying, death, and bereavement” with an urging for death work competence to be an ethical imperative (Gamino & Ritter, 2012). A further study of 176 death work professionals using an open ended question and content analysis proposed a model of death work competence that suggests it is dependent on more than knowledge and skills, with the emergence of emotional and existential coping as key elements (Chan & Tin, 2012). This study aims to build on this existing research with an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of six existential practitioners` experience of feeling competent in their death work, grounding the research in Heidegger`s notion of being-towards-death. The aim was to get as close as possible to the lived experience of death work competency in a small, purposive sample to investigate the subjective meanings and understandings of their death work competency. Semi structured interviews were conducted with five major themes emerging. These were frameworks for death work competency; existential engagement in competent death work; existential ways of being in death work; the psychological impact of death work on feelings of competency and the elusive essence of death work competency. The significant finding was the primary import placed by all participants on dialogues with personal mortality, suffering and death as providing them with “competency in adversity” and “competency in fragility” that were vital for their competent death work, both personally and professionally. These findings match the identification of existential coping and emotional coping as key elements in death work competency in the previous research. From this research a tentative framework is proposed for death work competency that looks to include these vital elements of an engagement with existential issues and personal mortality, for counselling psychologists and death work practitioners. Further research is suggested with regards to the absence or presence of similar experiences of death work competencies in other fields of death work with wider implications for training in both professional organisations and teaching institutions.

Thesis advisor: Melissa M. Kelley / Thesis advisor: Lisa Sowle Cahill / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

This thesis examines the management of multidisciplinary teams in a highly innovative environment through a study of multidisciplinary patient care teams in palliative care. It investigates management that enables spontaneous innovation where necessary, yet maintains discipline and compliance with legislation, regulation and policy. To assist the explanation a model of palliative care multidisciplinary team management and operation is developed, building on work described in the continuous innovation and organisational configuration literatures. This thesis describes innovative practices as focusing on changing the organisation’s social potential, when necessary, in order to match changes in an individual patient’s situation. A definition of innovation suitable to this environment is developed here, adapted from the innovation literature. A definition of social potential suitable to this environment is also developed, based primarily in the literature of the socialisation of organisations. In palliative care organisations, care is delivered to the patient and any group of people supporting the patient during the end of life process. Care provided to these supporters, referred to in this thesis as patient-based carers, can extend beyond the death of the patient. Palliative care is more than symptom management during the dying process and can involve an interaction lasting weeks or months between the organisation and patients and patient-based carers. A patient’s situation is described at many levels and involves a number of aspects of the patient’s condition and life; for example medical, social, psychosocial, spiritual and physical. In palliative care, patients and patient-based carers are the major sources of information about their situation and changes to it. This makes them active participants in the care team, although some patients and patient-based carers choose not to take this role. Every patient and every group of patient-based carers creates individualised situations when progressing through their end of life processes, requiring individualised care from teams that can change the membership mix to suit the situation. Palliative care professionals can be members of multiple individual patient care teams simultaneously and teams can include heads of discipline (managers). Multidisciplinary palliative care teams can be managed from inside or outside the team, as the situation requires. Uncertainty pervades this environment and the response is flexibility based in learning and understanding. From the model developed of the management of innovation in the palliative care environment implications for the management of multidisciplinary teams in a highly innovative environment are drawn. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-122).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 345-360).

No description available.

This qualitative inquiry explores Chinese Canadians' experience of the death and dying of a family member in a Canadian cultural context. The participants of this study consisted of eight bereaved Chinese immigrants and four Chinese professionals whose work is closely related to the field of death and dying. Following a phenomenological research methodology, data was collected through in-depth interviews and participant observation. The narratives of the study participants were then analyzed. The results of the study identify the participants' four coping characteristics and also highlight their coping strategies and the rationale behind them. Analysis of the data leads to insights into the need for educational support to provide culturally sensitive care for dying Chinese patients and their families.

This thesis is an exploration of the social construction and organization of community palliative care. The author's personal experience as the wife of a dying person is used to explicate the social relations of palliative care, through the feminist and constructivist methodology of institutional ethnography. The data analyzed includes a personal journal, working texts of the palliative care team (e.g. recording and reporting forms) obtained through Freedom of Information, and the Palliative Care at Home manual. / Graduate / 0452

Thesis (M Nursing)--University of South Australia, 1998

Thesis (MHlth Sc(OccTh))--University of South Australia, 1999