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The focus of this research is the study of unity in mission and coping with conflict as a way of being faithfully present. Researching unity in mission in a divided congregation is important because it may relate, not only to the congregation, but also, in a broader sense, to the experience in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA) and other denominations. While the review of literature provided background information on the theology of faithful presence including the theologies of place and place presence, a further review was conducted on the theology of mission as reconciliation as a way of being faithfully present. The study addresses this gab in literature and research by investigating the role of mission in helping congregants cope with church conflict and staying faithfully present in their situation. To achieve this goal, congregants lived experience of their congregational life in the midst of conflict was revealed and analysed using phenomenology as the most suitable method for data gathering, analysis and interpretation. Phenomenological approach was chosen simple because of its capability of providing congregants’ personal account of their experience. The question that needed to be understood was whether congregants still had time, space and motivation to be with the people God is sending them to. The primary goal is to understand congregants lived experience under the influence of conflict and how these congregants remained faithfully present in their situation. The secondary aim is to recommend ways and means of reconciliation most relevant to their situation particularly where subjects are not role players in the conflict. The researcher was interested in finding out if using mission as reconciliation can, in meaningful ways, move the reconciliation process forward. The research found a direct correlation between conflict and the mission of the church. As the conflict continued to manifest, congregants developed a lack of trust in the leadership of the church, which motivated them to practice mission unilaterally outside the precincts of the church. As this unfolded, the congregation became irrelevant, its mission suffered and the congregational life became less meaningful. The congregation as a community of sent people, became too internally focused, losing its sting as a missional force in the neighbourhood. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Science of Religion and Missiology / MTh / Unrestricted

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / HIV/AIDS is one of the major challenging illnesses globally and is increasingly recognised as an illness that affects families and not just the individual. While HIV/AIDS has brought many challenges to infected individuals and their families, the focus has primarily been on individuals with HIV/AIDS in relation to their needs. Families often provide most of the emotional and physical care to a family member with HIV/AIDS, placing a huge strain on them that could lead to tension between family members. There is a paucity of research exploring the phenomenon of being a member of a family affected by HIV/AIDS. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the lived experiences of family members adjusting to HIV/AIDS disclosure within their families.

Bakgrund: I Sverige drabbas årligen cirka 8000 till 9000 personer av hjärtstopp. De flesta överlever inte, men i takt med att allmänheten utbildats i hjärt- och lungräddning och fler hjärtstartare finns tillgängliga överlever fler personer hjärtstopp. Sjuksköterskan kan i yrkeslivet träffa patienter som överlevt hjärtstopp, varför det är av vikt att beskriva patienters erfarenheter av att överleva hjärtstopp. Det skapar förståelse för patientens upplevelse och därmed underlättar i mötet mellan patient och sjuksköterska.Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva patienters erfarenheter av att ha överlevt hjärtstopp.Metod: Denna studie har genomförts som en litteraturöversikt och baserades på elva kvalitativa och fyra kvantitativa artiklar publicerade mellan år 2005–2020. Sökningarna utfördes i databaserna CINAHL och PubMed. Artiklarna kvalitetsgranskades och analyserades sedan i fyra steg.Resultat: Resultatet mynnade i tre huvudkategorier: Behov av stöd och information, Existentiella frågor och Livsförändringar. Patienter som överlevt hjärtstopp har ofta behov av att bearbeta händelsen, de vill få information om vad som hänt under tiden de varit medvetslösa och hjälp av sjukvården att känna trygghet hemma. Hjärtstoppet väcker frågor om livet, döden och varför hjärtstoppet inträffat. Efter hjärtstoppet förändras kroppen i olika grad både fysiskt och psykiskt vilket leder till förändringar i livssituation och socialt. Patienter kan göra olika livsstilsförändringar för att anpassa till det nya livet efter hjärtstopp.Slutsats: Antalet personer som överlever hjärtstopp ökar för varje år vilket leder till ökade kunskapskrav på vårdpersonalen avseende denna patientgrupp. De fynd som gjorts i denna litteraturstudie kan skapa förståelse för patientens erfarenheter av att överleva hjärtstopp, vilket i sin tur kan användas för att optimera rehabiliteringen för dessa patienter. / Background: In Sweden, approximately 8,000 to 9,000 people suffer from cardiac arrest every year. As the general public increasingly are trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillators are more available, people who survive cardiac arrest are a rising crowd. The nurse can in the professional life meet these patients, which is why it is important to describe patients' experiences of surviving cardiac arrest. It creates an understanding of the patient's experience and thus facilitates the meeting between patient and nurse.Aim: The aim of this literature review was to describe the patients experience of surviving cardiac arrest.Method: This study has been conducted as a literature review. It was based on eleven qualitative and four quantitative articles published between year 2005 and 2020. The articles were searched through the databases CINAHL and PubMed. The articles have been quality reviewed and then analyzed in four steps.Result: The result fell into three main categories: Need for support and information, Existential issues, and Life changes. Patients who have survived cardiac arrest have a need to process the event, they want information about what happened during the time they were unconscious and help to feel safe at home. The cardiac arrest raises questions about life, death and why the cardiac arrest happened. After the cardiac arrest, the body changes in varying degrees both physically and mentally, which leads to changes in life situation and socially. Patients can do lifestyle changes to adapt to the new life situation.Conclusion: The number of cardiac arrest survivors are increasing which leads to higher knowledge requirements for healthcare professionals. The findings of this literature review can create understanding for patients experiences after surviving cardiac arrest, which can be used to improve the recovery process for these patients.

This thesis explores how women experience their friendships with other women. The aim is to investigate the experience of female friendship through a feminist perspective and what meaning these relationships have for the women involved. To critically discuss the role it plays in their everyday lives, how norms and different power structures such as gender and class affect how women create and experience female friendships. Qualitative and semi-structured interviews with seven women were utilised to analyse how friendships are experienced. The women are all white, middle-class, between 25 and 68 years old and they have been interviewed individually.  The thesis applies a phenomenological perspective and focus on the lived experience of friendship throughout both the data collection and the analysis. The thesis discusses how friendship is experienced in different stages of the participants lives, using theory about temporality and life schedules. Friendships are expected to be central relationships in some stages of our lives, but then expected to be subordinate to romantic relationships at other times. This affects the temporality of friendships, forcing it to be among our most flexible relationships. Drawing on theories of class, social and cultural capital this thesis also explores how friendship relates to surrounding power structures. These become central in the women’s understanding of who they can become friends with, how the friendship is organized, as well as the temporality of friendship. The thesis also discusses how negative friendships are experienced, and how women negotiate these relationships. How the temporality of friendship also allows for ways and strategies to end friendships.

English Abstract This Master Degree thesis takes up the topic of fashion and deals with the debate concerning fashion as a mean of expressing womens individual self. The main aim of this thesis is to analyse the meanings which women in todays society attach to fashion and their individual lived experience with this phenomenon. This text is based on theoretical assumptions of Gilles Lipovetsky as his conceptual understanding of fashion emphasises free agency of human beings and therefore stays against the opinions of traditional sociology of fashion. For a long time, the area of fashion had been neglected, however, in this text the subject is discussed as a socially relevant and historically developing phenomenon and as an unique institution, which is characteristic for a modern society. Theoretical outcome of this thesis is the suggestion that fashion might be understood as one of the means used by women to express their individual self. Woman is seen as an individual human being, who lives through her own unique experience, on the other hand, her behaviour, her own experience is limited by external factors and conditions.

Child and youth care (CYC) practitioners (CYCPs) who have lived in residential placement as children or youth represent an understudied and thus largely unknown cohort. This lack of knowledge has resulted in assumptions, generalizations, and unfounded claims impacting discourses, and potentially practices, within CYC. Based on the development of an original research method—audio drama inquiry—this sonic dissertation presents the first documented examination of the perspectives, experiences, and insights of 17 Canadian CYCPs “from care” (CYCPfC). Informed by research-based theatre, CYC theory, and care ethics, two audio drama series were created asking “what does residential placement experience do to CYCPs, and how do CYCPfC do CYC?” The resulting performances reveal frictions and desires related to working for, within, and at times against the same systems that one grew up in. CYCPfC articulate benefits resulting from their “lived experience,” such as identification, empathy, inimitable systemic knowledge, and motivations to initiate change within such systems. However, the audio dramas also reveal perils related to their personal histories, the institutions in which they work(ed), and the “the field” more broadly. Through greater understanding of CYCPfC, who provide insights, cautions, and learnings from their unique perspectives, this study advances our knowledge regarding what is done when doing CYC. Moreover, Tuning into CYC broadens existing frames of qualitative inquiry through explicating and demonstrating the theoretical and practical elements of audio drama inquiry. / Graduate

This study explores students' and their families' experiences during the pandemic response to COVID-19 by the higher education community. Using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we employed two open-ended surveys and semi-structured interviews of 16 parent-college student dyads (N = 34). The study draws on students' and parents' retrospective accounts beginning Spring 2020 through the Fall 2020 semesters. Families experienced a disruptive event initialized by the ebb and flow of information. Students' experiences varied based on their expectations and academic classification. The most consistent family challenges were the displacement of students and parents from their physical education and work locations while having to maintain student and occupation responsibilities. The educational experience was inconsistent and dependent on each professors' capacity to engage the students in the online environment. Students expressed feelings of loss of their student and educational experiences, but most students felt the spring courses prepared them to continue their education. Assignments due at random times and poor communication about expectations inhibit students from having dedicated time to interact and make memories. Most families adapted to the new normal by supporting the family members' identities as students and employees and ensuring everyone had the resource needed to succeed. Families experienced monotony and temporal disorientation. Families made meaningful memories through conversation, outdoor recreation, and other activities outside the daily routine. Family members provided feedback to one another to help the family maintain a stable system.

Background: Forensic psychiatry is characterised by compulsory care and long hospital stays, where nurses care for patients with severe mental illness, who often have committed crimes. The main objective is to rehabilitate the patient to once again become a part of society by improving mental health and decreasing the risk of criminal relapse. This is mainly achieved through encounters with the patients. Encountering patients in forensic psychiatry means coming face to face with suffering and the duality of caring, doing what is best for the patient and protecting society. Aim: The purpose of the study was to obtain a deeper understanding of encounters with patients with mental illness in forensic inpatient care as experienced by nurses. Method: This licentiate thesis consists of two studies (I, II), both conducted with a qualitative design. A total of 13 nurses working at a forensic psychiatric hospital in Sweden were recruited through a purposive sample to participate in the studies through narrative interviews. Study I was analysed with phenomenological hermeneutics in line with Lindseth and Norbergh (2004) in order to illuminate the lived experience of nurses’ encounters. Study II was a secondary supplementary analysis, which applied hermeneutics in line with Fleming, Gaidys, and Robb (2003) to gain a deeper understanding of nurses’ compassion in forensic psychiatry. The two studies were merged to provide a comprehensive understanding in this licentiate thesis. Findings: Study I illuminated the meaning of nurses’ lived experiences of encounters with patients with mental illnesses in forensic inpatient care, that is the nurses’ desire to do good despite being confronted with their own emotions as fear, humiliation, and disappointment. Encounters were also occasionally perceived as positive, awakening emotions of compassion, competence, pride, trust, satisfaction, and gratification regarding the patient’s recovery. However, a source of conflict was the struggle between doing what was best for the patient and protecting society. The study comprised of four themes: being frustrated, protecting oneself, being open-minded, and striving for control. Study II aimed to gain a deeper understanding of nurses’ compassion in providing forensic psychiatric inpatient care with three themes: recognising suffering and need for support, responding to patient suffering, and reacting to one’s own vulnerability. Abstracting to a main theme of being compassionate in forensic psychiatry which is described as an emotional journey, an ongoing inner negotiation between own vulnerability and expressions of suffering. This inner negotiation of making sense of patients’ plea and how they were perceived was crucial for determining the development of compassion rather than turning to control and rules as a means to protect oneself. Discussion: A interpretation of the studies (I, II) revealed two topics, being sensitive and responsive and keeping distance, which were reflected upon against the theoretical framework of Kari Martinsen. The studies showed that nurses faced a variety of encounters that forced them to face their own vulnerability and that trust could reduce power imbalances as well as help deal with societal, man-made constructs. The nurses’ encounters with incomprehensible expressions of suffering also show that nurses need to find a way to make room for “expressions of life”– taking a step back and turning their gaze inwards – in order to regulate their own emotions. This may better equip nurses to encounter patients with compassion and kindness rather than turning to norms and rules to protect themselves and guard their own vulnerability. Rather than distancing themselves from the patients, nurses can instead take a step back to come closer to their patients.

The U.S. Southwest Border is associated with highly politicized topics, yet the lived experience of Border Patrol agents is not one of them. Border Patrol agents face risks to their personal safety and security as they attempt to safeguard the national security of the United States while implementing the policies of their organization, which are sometimes at odds with the beliefs and expectations of agents in the field. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore perceptions and lived experiences related to the threats and dangers that Border Patrol agents face as they protect the U.S. Southwest Border. The theoretical framework for this study involved McGregor's organizational behavior theory, Janis's groupthink theory, and the bureaucratic dissonance phenomenon. Data collected through semistructured interviews of 11 former Border Patrol agents with direct experience working along the U.S. Southwest Border were inductively coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. On-duty risks, emotional toll, lack of community support, and separation from family are among the stressors for members of this profession. The key findings regarding threats and dangers included: perceived manpower shortage, fear of assaults, the very nature of the job, political and presidential administration conflicts, and lack of mobility (location and career advancements). The recommendations call for greater policy-and decision-maker understanding of the stresses and conflicts facing Border Patrol agents, which could effect positive social change by encouraging policies and regulations to improve job safety and security, and to inform training programs. The promulgation of the findings may contribute to improvements of the morale and safety of Border Patrol agents and enhance security of the United States.