Despite Darwin's wishes for evolution to influence psychology, evolutionary psychology remains a controversial issue and as such lingers in the shadows of counselling psychology. It is argued that although it can be difficult to support evolutionary psychology with tests, it may be of use in counselling psychology if it is experienced by clients as valuable. In the current study, data was gathered from focus groups, dyads, 1:1 interviews and email responses from people with social anxiety to discover more about the experiences of receiving an evolutionary perspective of social anxiety and to consider what implications these experiences have on how participants then make sense of social anxiety. Qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the data and a range of experiences were reported. The main themes elucidated were: negotiating with the breadth and depth of the information and plausibility of the perspective, emotional experiences of the perspective including normalising, validating and shaming, consideration of the bigger picture, and consideration of the future. It is concluded that evolutionary perspectives may be useful to consider in counselling psychology, but that this should be carried out in accordance with the individual needs of the client. Further research and practical implications are explored.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:574504 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Bernstein, Tanya Rachel |
| Publisher | City University London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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