Every year in America, nurses provide care to 1.5 million women before during and after abortions. While the procedure continues to be legal, the experience for women often remains secret, unshared and unexplored. A grounded theory approach was used to explore women's perceptions of the abortion experience and to investigate the processes women use to create meaning from the abortion experience over time. Parse's Man-Living-Health Model provided a theoretical orientation for this research. Subjects included six nulliparous women aged 25 to 37 who experienced a legal abortion between 1 and 12 years ago. Using grounded theory methodology, a phenomenon of Integrating Ambivalence was developed to describe the circular process by which women are reminded of the abortion experience, and re-evaluate their decision within the context of their lives. Using a variety of strategies, the women moved toward increasing integration of the experience while remaining, to varying degrees, ambivalent about the abortion decision and its consequences.

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No description available.

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.

The purpose of this study was to explore the decision-making process of Indo-Canadian women in seeking counselling help. Little research regarding help-seeking behaviours and attitudes of minority groups has been done in the area of counselling psychology. Even less attention has been given to the Indo-Canadian community. The aim of this study was to contribute to existing research through a contextual understanding of the influences on an Indo-Canadian woman whe/n faced with the decision to pursue counselling help. It was further intended to provide mental health services with information on ways of encouraging this cultural group to utilize the available help resources. This study used narrative and multiple case study methodology. Seven Indo-Canadian women, all having previously used mental health services, were interviewed. Interviews were then transcribed, and 'straightened' into individual narratives based on the unique story of each participant. Factors of hindrance and facilitation with regard to help-seeking were extracted from the narratives and then analyzed for commonalities. The transcripts and narratives were validated by an external examiner to ensure freedom from distortion and bias. Five of the seven stories along with the factors of hindrance and facilitation were further validated by the respective participants. In addition, an abstract story was constructed from the individual accounts. Findings extended the research through the identification of facilitating factors in the decision-making process of Indo-Canadian women in seeking counselling.

In this research, I explore the body life history of six women, interweaving my own, focusing in particular on the "crossroads" between preadolescence and adolescence. 'My' participants and I do a form of memorywork, looking for an understanding of the meaning of body in the construction of girls' and women's subjectivity. Using photographs, the writing of a third person narrative and in-depth interviews, 'my' participants and I generate a biography of the body. I focus on two emerging themes, body commentary and movement or physical activity, and their impact on the lives of adolescent girls. I emphasize the importance of continuing to explore the current discourse on girls, while simultaneously questioning it.

This study used relational personality theory to explore gender differences in Holland typology. The primary premise of relational personality theory is that women have a self identity that is developed and maintained in relation to others. This orientation to relationship or Connected Self is a primary component of identity that will lead to decisions and actions that reflect the valuing of relationships. This is in opposition to a Separate Self orientation that is primarily centered in independence, separation, and autonomy. The Connected Self was hypothesized to effect women's career interests as measured by the Self-Directed Search (SDS). The strongest relationship was found between Connected Self and scores on the Social scale of the SDS. Connected Self was found to be a significant predictor variable for women's scores on the Social scale. Connected Self also predicted scores on the Artistic scale, although to a lesser degree. In addition, Separate Self was a significant predictor of scores on the Enterprising and Conventional scales of the SDS.In order to further explore the relationship between Connected Self and women's scores on the Social scale, the subjects scoring highest in Social were further divided into groups based on interests in working with peers versus clients and on ability to care for self and others or to put others needs before one's own. Counseling implications for women who score highest on the Social scale are offered. In addition, further research is suggested. / Department of Educational Psychology

This study explored the experience of contraceptive use by women wanting to prevent pregnancy. Six women between the ages of 22 and 41 were interviewed concerning their lifetime experience with contraception. The women spoke of similar issues such as making their own decisions, being ambivalent at times, fear of pregnancy, taking risks, reactions to failure of a method and the influence of mothers, partners, and health care providers. The seven themes that emerged were titled as "the decision was mine", "throw caution to the wind", "scared half to death", "something's just not right here", "a big, big shock", "I was never told the facts of life" and "you don't ask any questions". Themes were described using the actual words of each woman interviewed so as to reflect the lived experience of contraceptive use. / School of Nursing

Research on the psychology of women, and women's negative embodied experiences, frequently implicates societal practices of objectification as catalysts for the internalization of objectification in women, or self-objectification. While extant models and theories provide excellent frameworks for identifying the causes, consequences and development of self-objectification in women, much detail is required before these formulations achieve their full clinical application. Information on women's immediate emotional, cognitive, and behavioural responses to objectifying social experiences would assist clinicians and clients to identify common concomitants of objectification and self-objectification, particularly those that aggregate over time into long-term negative psychological outcomes. / In the present study, hypotheses regarding women's social experiences of objectification and self-objectification were tested on 228 college-age women who completed the Objectification Response Questionnaire (ORQ; Robinson, 2001), and measures assessing Objectified Body Consciousness (OBC; McKinley & Hyde, 1996) and Self-Objectification (SOQ; Noll & Fredrickson, 1997). On the ORQ, participants report on emotional and cognitive responses, as well as behavioural responses in the form of social looking, to hypothetical scenarios depicting social experiences of objectifying gazing by a stranger. ORQ responses were unrelated to SOQ scores, but were related to OBC Self-Surveillance and Control Beliefs subscales. Interactions of OBC scores and observer characteristics of gender and attractiveness were also significantly related to ORQ scores. Results are discussed in the context of augmenting prevailing theories and models in the area of women and self-objectification, specifically in the form of clinical applications to disrupt certain social experiences of objectification and self-objectification, and facilitate behaviours, thoughts and attitudes associated with resilience, competence and subjectification.

This research examined automatic evaluation of body-related stimuli in female undergraduates using an affective priming task. Automaticity was tested by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and valence congruence of the prime and target pairs. The prime to target interval (SOA) was either short or long, and the valence of the paired items was either the same (congruent) or different (incongruent). Automaticity was indicated by faster responses to congruent pairs than to incongruent pairs at the short SOA (parsimonious criterion) but not at the long SOA (classic criterion). Individual differences in thin internalisation, appearance schematicity, body dissatisfaction, and dietary restraint were assessed as potential moderators. Automatic evaluation of body-related images, but not words, was demonstrated in Study 1B and Study 1A, respectively. In Study 2A, automatic evaluation of nonbody-related words was obtained and this was extended to body-related words (Study 2B). In Study 3, automatic evaluation of normatively-selected body words was examined and body image schema activation was tested as a function of level of appearance schematicity. There was a trend toward automaticity and schematicity did not moderate schema activation. Overall, elevated body image concerns did not influence automatic evaluation in Studies 1A to 3 (with the exception of Study 1B). The role of extreme levels of appearance schematicity on automaticity and schema activation was examined in Studies 4A and 4B for normative and idiographic primes. Automatic evaluation was demonstrated in Study 4A and a trend was obtained in Study 4B. Schematicity did not moderate affective processing or schema activation. Automatic evaluation of body-related images was replicated in Study 5 but it was not moderated by prime strength or individual differences. Overall, the research suggests that most female undergraduates, irrespective of differences in body image concerns, automatically evaluate body-related stimuli. The final chapter provides an overview of the findings and discusses the theoretical and practical implications.