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The Media Reproduction Of Racial Violence: A Content Analysis Of News Coverage Following The Death Of George Floyd Jr., Keylon Lovett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The media has played a critical role in reproducing anti-Black violence in the United States, which has often harmed African American communities. Historically, the white press has depicted graphic imagery and descriptions of Black people being brutalized, with little ethical regard to their harmful effects. The Black press has historically challenged negative portrayals in the white media and shown more nuance, to protect the Black audience it represents. This dynamic underpins media depictions of racial violence still seen today. Darnella Frazier’s video capture of George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police, was widely shared in the weeks following the incident, across …

“We Developed Solidarity”: Family, Race, Identity, And Space-Time In Recent Multiethnic U.S. American Fiction, Kimber L. Wiggs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Diversity in Families, sociologists Maxine Baca Zinn, D. Stanley Eitzen, and Barbara Wells assert, “At a very personal level, families are crucial shapers of who we are and what our opportunities have been and will be” (xvii). The novels in this dissertation—Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange (1997), and Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita’s Lunar Braceros 2125-2148 (2009)—examine the role of family in the development of individual identity and the practice of social justice. These authors foreground characters from various ethnic backgrounds and depict how the characters form new, multiethnic families. My dissertation explores the …

Seeing Trauma: The Known And The Hidden In Nineteenth-Century Literature, Alisa M. Deborde

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Trauma as an official diagnosis first entered the DSM in 1980 and literary theorists began employing the term to discuss literature not too long after. Since the 1990s, theorists have largely focused on twentieth-century trauma literature with Holocaust and Modernist texts garnering much of the critical interest. Yet, Victorian life was also marked by trauma-causing events. From railway catastrophes, to industrial accidents, to premature deaths, and infectious diseases, Victorians reckoned with wounds to the mind through their lived experience. Trauma scholars who do work with nineteenth-century texts, with few exceptions, consider trauma in terms of its modern theories. While the …

The Impact Of Traumatic Event Exposure In The Emergency Medical Services: A Weekly Diary Study, Stephanie A. Andel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) professionals are consistently exposed to a variety of traumatic events on the job, such as cases that involve the death or injury of a patient, being physically threatened, or encountering a mass casualty incident. Not surprisingly, research has found that such traumatic exposure has major implications, as it has been related to a plethora of negative strain outcomes such as posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and burnout. However, at this point, research has not empirically examined the mechanisms by which these traumatic events lead to strain. Therefore, this study aims to further investigate these mechanisms by incorporating …

Healthcare Costs Of Injured Youth: The Need For Prevention, Policy, And Proper Triage, Jessica Lynn Ryan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objective

The goal of this dissertation was to identify evidence regarding potential means to reduce healthcare spending on youth injury while protecting and promoting the health of our youth. The first analysis estimated and analyzed both the financial costs and time lost from sports injuries among inpatient and ED youth patients to aid in identifying key populations, raising awareness to policy makers, and emphasizing the need of prevention programs for sports injury. The second analysis analyzed the effect of volume and trauma center (TC) ownership type on trauma alert response charges, which are billed to injured patients for a trauma …

Predicting Successful Drug Court Graduation: Exploring Demographic And Psychosocial Factors Among Medication-Assisted Drug Court Treatment Clients, Autumn Michelle Frei

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of psychosocial factors on drug court graduation among a medication assisted treatment drug court population. The extant research identifies drug courts as effective in reducing recidivism and relapse rates; however meta-analyses of the drug court literature reveal that there is little explanation as to why drug courts are effectual and especially for whom. This study examined trauma, mental health, and social support to determine predictive psychosocial factors of drug court participants while controlling for certain demographics. The analyses showed that social support was predictive, but failed to identify trauma or …

A Collective Case Study Of The Diagnosis Of Dissociative Disorders In Children, Jacqueline J. Reycraft

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a paucity of research on the diagnosis of dissociative disorders in children. Most children are misdiagnosed with more common mental disorders with similar symptoms. Earlier recognition of dissociative disorders can save years of pain, suffering, and cost. This qualitative collective case study examined the process of diagnosing dissociation in two children under the ages of 12 at the beginning of treatment. A concurrent focus on the training and development of the therapist/researcher is included. Archival data including progress notes, psychotherapy notes, assessments, correspondence, legal documents, school records, and medical records were analyzed using within-case and cross-case analyses to …

The Efficacy Of Aggression Replacement Training With Female Juvenile Offenders In A Residential Commitment Program, Jody Anne Erickson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Female adolescents are increasingly being charged with crimes of violence, and the literature is lacking as to how best to reduce their aggressive tendencies. In the past, girls represented a small portion of all youths involved in criminal justice systems, and studies involving effective treatment options for them were rarely conducted.

Aggression Replacement Training® is a 10-week, evidence-based, group treatment intervention designed to advance moral reasoning, improve social skills, and manage angry feelings. Numerous outcome studies of Aggression Replacement Training® with both offending and non-offending male adolescents and with male and female adolescents together have yielded mixed results. The question …

"A Border Is A Veil Not Many People Can Wear": Testimonial Fiction And Transnational Healing In Edwidge Danticat's The Farming Of Bones And Nelly Rosario's Song Of The Water Saints, Megan Adams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on recent attempts to reconcile the divergent nations of Hispaniola, I will examine the ways in which fiction by U.S. immigrant writers Danticat and Rosario looks back to the traumatic history of race relations on Hispaniola and the 1937 massacre as a means of approaching reconciliation and healing amongst the inhabitants of Hispaniola. As invested outsiders to their homelands, Danticat and Rosario may work, as Chancy suggests, in the capacity of actors for Hispaniola. Both Danticat and Rosario graciously admit that their writing is largely contingent on the relative freedom from censure that their American citizenship affords them. In …

The Influence Of Daily Social Stimulation In Ameliorating Ptsd-Like Behavioral And Physiological Changes In Rats Exposed To Chronic Psychosocial Stress, Shyam Seetharaman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals exposed to life-threatening trauma are at increased risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Not all people exposed to trauma, however, go on to develop PTSD. Some evidence suggests that individuals who receive social stimulation, such being involved in supportive social networks, are less likely to develop PTSD compared to those lacking social interactions. Although human research has been effective in demonstrating associations between higher levels of social stimulation and lower incidences of PTSD, there has been a lack of experimental evidence suggesting that social stimulation protects against the onset of the disorder after trauma. Here, we tested the …

Resiliency In Lesbians With A History Of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Implications For Clinical Practice, Amy R. Menna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This was a collective case where lesbian survivors of childhood sexual abuse were studied. Resiliency is a combination of personality traits and environmental influences that serve to protect an individual from the harmful psychological effects of trauma (Bogar & Hulse-Killaky, 2006). The focus of this study was resiliency skills that lesbians used in working through childhood sexual abuse and clinical applications. Using a qualitative approach, specific inquiries included (a) what resiliency skills were used to work through childhood sexual abuse, (b) how counselors can be helpful and unhelpful, (c) what were some barriers to getting counseling, (d) what are the …

The Moderating Role Of Meaning And Defense Mechanisms In The Association Between Child Sexual Abuse And Romantic Relationship Dysfunction, Angela Fairweather

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated whether finding meaning in relation to sexual trauma and using mature defense mechanisms would moderate the association between child sexual abuse (CSA) severity and relationship and psychological adjustment in a sample of undergraduate women with a history of child sexual abuse. CSA severity was measured both objectively (i.e., severity of the abusive event) and subjectively (i.e., self-reported perceptions of the severity of the abusive event). As predicted, the interaction of objective CSA severity and mature defenses uniquely predicted one of four aspects of romantic relationship functioning (i.e., dyadic cohesion or doing joint activities with one's partner), …

Comparison Of Two Treatments For Fingertip Amputation: A Retrospective Cohort Study, Karen Olson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: To compare the costs and length of disability for conservative treatment versus skin grafting of distal finger and thumb tip amputations. Methods: Thirty-five zone I finger or thumb tip amputations in thirty-five workers in the Southeastern United States were included in this study. Twenty-four were treated with conservative treatment (bandaging to protect the wound). Eleven were treated with skin grafting. The total cost of medical care, total cost including wage replacement, and the length of disability were compared between the two groups. Impairment at the end of treatment was considered. Results: Even when the cost of wage replacement was …

Changing The Subject: First-Person Narration In And Out Of The Classroom, Susan Friedman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of first-person narration for self-transformation and social change is indicated by exploring connections between three emergent discourses: illness narratives and memoirs by rape survivors in which the subject speaks from a privileged yet socially marginalized position about life-altering experiences; clinical discourse that elaborates treatment methods for empowering trauma survivors and helping them reconnect with the social world; and scholarly discourse that reflects on the relationship between trauma, self-representation, witnessing, and recovery. Post-Foucauldian theories of life-writing illuminate how the author-subjects of survivor narratives discursively reconstruct their shattered subjectivity in a therapeutic relationship with themselves and their readers. Cognitive and …