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“Is That My Agenda Or Is That Serving The Client?”: Perspectives Of Social Justice-Oriented Counsellors On Working With Clients Who Express Oppressive Views, Lily G. Mackenzie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Current North American public discourse is strongly influenced by widespread sociopolitical divide. Given that sociopolitical events seem to permeate conversations in the therapy room (Farber, 2018; MacLeod, 2013), it is essential that therapists are prepared to navigate conversations with clients who have beliefs different from their own. This qualitative study explored the experiences of Canadian social justice-oriented counsellors who have worked with clients with oppressive views. Seven counsellors were interviewed about their experiences of working with oppression in the therapy room. Through qualitative content analysis, informed by a phenomenological approach, five core themes emerged: effect of personal identities, determination of …

Mindfulness With Children And Youth: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Inquiry Into Paediatric Therapists' Experiences, Kirsten S. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: Mindfulness has become popular as a treatment approach for many health conditions and has been taken up by diverse health practitioners in recent years. While research into mindfulness-based interventions is on the rise, much of this research originates in the field of psychology and is aimed toward adult populations. Occupational therapists, including those working with children and youth, have begun to take up mindfulness to support their clients to participate in daily activities, and there is evidence that clinical uptake has outpaced research in this area.

Method: A scoping review was undertaken to understand the breadth of literature regarding …

The Experience Of Mindfulness And Its Nondual Nature In Active Practitioners, Benjamin Tran

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mindfulness-based interventions have become well-established in the literature as an effective treatment for various health issues. Its application in psychology is predominantly informed by dualism; however, according to its Eastern traditions, a true understanding of mindfulness is developed via nondualistic ontological experiences that emerge in a mindfulness state. The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of mindfulness and its nondual nature as it is experienced in the world. Hermeneutical phenomenology, informed by an interpretivist lens, was employed. A sample of 13 mindfulness practitioners were individually interviewed. The experience of mindfulness and its nondual nature was considered through …

Alighting: A Phenomenology And Ethics Of Sight And Touch In The Videocall, Liam Morantz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis investigates from a phenomenological perspective how it is that I am able to share a space with my brother, Kyle, by way of the videocalling application FaceTime. While the thesis uses the personal as a starting point, it then draws on Merleau-Ponty, the tradition of critical phenomenology, and Media Studies to argue that the one and the other can share a ‘space’ through the screen, despite that they ostensibly only have mutual access to their auditory and visual environments. Drawing heavily on Merleau-Ponty and other contemporary phenomenologists, the thesis takes space and communication to be two different sides …

A Transformative Journey: The Lived Experience Of Healthcare Learners Participating In Pain Management Education, Zoe A. Leyland

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There is little emphasis on pain management education for healthcare providers. In September 2019, the Master of Clinical Science (MClSc) program in Advanced Healthcare Practice at Western University in London, Ontario introduced a new, “Interprofessional Pain Management” (IPM) field. The program follows a competency-based framework, and the learners are all practicing healthcare providers with a special interest in pain. Part of the purpose of this thesis is to describe the process of development and implementation. The objective is to provide educators and healthcare providers an in-depth look at how the pain education is experienced. This includes exploring the lived experience …

Exploring The Psychosocial Impact Of Botulinum Toxin Type-A Injections For Individuals With Oromandibular Dystonia: A Qualitative Study Of Patients' Experiences, Nada Elhayek

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explored the psychosocial impact of BoNT-A injections for OMD and explored how participants judge the success of this treatment. Eight participants with OMD participated in a single semi-structured interview. Phenomenological methods were used to analyze the interview data into themes. Two themes and six subthemes emerged from the analysis of the data. The first theme, Botox has changed me and my experiences, explored the participants’ perspective of receiving BoNT-A injections and its psychosocial impact. The second theme, What communication is like for me, explored the psychosocial impact of BoNT-A on speech production and participation. Our results …

Understanding The Lived Experiences Of Saudi Students Enrolled In Canadian Graduate Nursing Programs, Aisha Namshan Aldawsari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite the increased number of students in the field of nursing, there is a great shortage of Saudi nurses in Saudi Arabia (SA). Cultural issues in SA have influenced the development of the nursing profession. For instance, it is not culturally acceptable for female nurses or nursing students to work for long hours and night shifts in a mixed-gender practice environment in SA. Thus, a large proportion of nursing students tend to look for positions other than working in hospital settings upon completion of their undergraduate degree. Pursuing graduate nursing education overseas is also viewed as a viable option. To …

Critical Interventions In The Medical Humanities, Maryam Golafshani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis makes three novel critical theoretical interventions in the medical humanities. The first uses Benjamin’s critical theory of art in the age of its technological reproducibility to reveal that the evidence-based biomedical model’s primary function is not to cure patients, but to prescribe politics. The technological reproducibility of evidence-based biomedicine transforms medicine so it can no longer perceive—or encounter—patients as unique, whole, and above all situated beings. The second intervention uses Sara Ahmed’s feminist phenomenology to theorize ethical encounters between medicine and its “others”—patients and literature—in such a way that particularizes the encounter, not the other itself. …

Preparing To Receive: On The Revolutionary Questioning Of Being And Time, Joshua Livingstone

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

From the question of the meaning of being to the question concerning technology, the theme of questioning runs through the whole of Martin Heidegger’s work and plays a key role in the development of his thought. Despite its importance, however, it is a theme that has largely been left unexplored. This thesis is intended as the beginning of a corrective to a long overdue examination of Heideggerian questioning. I give a close, inner-textual analysis of questioning as it appears in Being and Time. By following Heidegger’s explicit commentary on and implicit use of questioning, I demonstrate that the question of …

"We Were Meant To Go Down One Road, But Now We Have Rerouted": A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Experience Of Aging Out-Of-Place, Sachindri Wijekoon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In an age of globalization, the experience of aging in a foreign land is part of the late-life experience of many older adults. However, studies of aging and migration have largely failed to conceptualize the unique resettlement experiences of immigrants entering North America as older adults. This dissertation asked, “What is the experience of aging out-of-place?” Specifically, this research question aimed to understand how late-life immigrants relate to, and connect and engage with places through aging processes, and the essentiality of daily occupations within such engagement. An interpretive paradigm and a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology guided this inquiry. The hermeneutic phenomenological …

Lived Experience Of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Among Saudi Women: Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Hayat Abdullah Algamadi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as an abnormal glucose tolerance of variable severity with onset or first recognition during pregnancy and usually disappearing immediately after delivery. Women diagnosed with GDM are at high risk for adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes such as hypertension, birth trauma, stillbirth, obesity, perineal lacerations and higher rates of cesarean section. The prevalence of GDM has recently increased two to three-fold worldwide. GDM has emerged as a significant health issue among pregnant women in Saudi Arabia, yet little is known about what this experience is like for Saudi women and their families. A hermeneutic …

Lived Experience And Process Of Engagement In Physical Exercise For Older Adults With Chronic Back Pain, Melissa E. Hay

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For older adults, physical exercise is especially important in maintaining functional independence, extending quality of life, and optimizing personal health resources. For patients with chronic pain conditions, exercise participation can significantly improve patient-reported symptoms. Older adults are the most sedentary age group with the majority not meeting the recommended duration and intensity of weekly exercise. Although nonadherence with exercise guidelines may result for a variety of reasons, adverse health conditions including chronic pain are likely of particular concern for older adults. The aim of this research, consisting of two studies employing interpretive phenomenology and constructivist grounded theory, was to understand …

Living With Copd Through The Eyes Of Veterans And Their Spouses Residing In Ontario, Erisa Deda

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is characterized by the progressive decline of lung function. Despite being twice more likely to develop COPD, very little focus has been placed on understanding the impact of this disease on veterans and/or their spouses who have it. The aim of this hermeneutical phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of Canadian veterans and/or their spouses with COPD. In addition to their knowledge and experience with the information and services provided to them. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews were used to reveal themes. The themes included: I don’t feel so good; having to stop …

A New Framework For Enactivism: Understanding The Enactive Body Through Structural Flexibility And Merleau-Ponty’S Ontology Of Flesh, John Jenkinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The enactive approach to cognition and consciousness offers a valuable alternative to the standard approaches dominant in the sciences of mind. As an embodied account, enactivism incorporates theoretical perspectives on the body from phenomenology, cognitive science, and biology, which provides a unique interpretation of embodiment with critical insight into the embodied nature of cognition and consciousness. Nonetheless, I argue that several revisions are required to make enactivism viable within the context of the sciences of mind. The enactive account of subjectivity is problematic, in light of arguments developed in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s later texts, because it is implicitly dualistic. I demonstrate …

Mindfulness And Mothering: Reclaiming Feminine Voice, Lisa L. Mccorquodale

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Little is known about working mothers who practice mindfulness. This dissertation is a phenomenological investigation using body mapping as a way to understand how mindfulness works in the lives of six women who work in health and social care while parenting young children.

This dissertation is comprised of five integrated articles. Chapter 1 and 7 are included as an Introduction and Discussion/Conclusion to the five separate though related manuscript chapters. The main research questions that framed this research include, ‘What is the work of mindfulness in the lives of working professional mothers?’ and ‘In what ways might a mindfulness practice …

In-Between What Once Was And What Is Yet To Come: On The Phenomena Of Bereavement And Grieving, Rachel L B Bath

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

When a significant other dies, our lives can be shattered and our worlds upended. We may find that we no longer know how to make sense of our experiences or how to engage in our practical activities. Nothing can be as it was before because the world as we once knew it has ended, and we are no longer the same persons we once were. Nonetheless this ending opens up something new because the death of the other changes the possibilities of our lived world. A phenomenological analysis of the phenomena of grief and bereavement reveals that while bereavement undermines …

Living Perception In Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mary Mclevey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the philosophical underpinnings of the possibility to perceive in different ways, with a particular attention to Merleau-Ponty's account of perception as inseparable from the wider arc of a person's embodied existence. Chapter 1 reflects on the relationship between Merleau-Ponty's description of the co-existence of the senses, and concrete ways that individual perceivers co-exist. Chapter 2 brings Merleau-Ponty's account of perception as a field of lived relationships, into conversation with the contingency of perceptual limits. Chapter 3 examines the significance of Merleau-Ponty's attention to experiences of synaesthesia and proposes concrete ways that a perceiver might move to shift …

The Phenomenology Of Masters Alpine Ski Racers: Experiencing Ski Racing In Old Age, Carly Litchfield

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a study of the lived experience of ten older adult alpine ski racers in their continued participation in ski racing. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the experiences of these older adults as they continued to compete in ski racing. Masters skiers between the ages of 69 and 82 participated in individual interviews lasting between 30 and 60 minutes. Data analysis was completed using van Manen’s phenomenological methods and the visual technique of mind mapping. The major theme that emerged was the importance of being a ski racer to participants’ identities. The …

The Consequences Of Oromandibular Dystonia On Communicative Participation: A Qualitative Study Of The Insider's Experiences, Lauren Siegel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to explore the consequences of oromandibular dystonia (OMD) on communicative participation from the insider’s perspective. Qualitative research methods were used to obtain a self-reported account of the experience of living with OMD. Eight individuals with OMD and dysarthria participated in face-to-face phenomenological interviews. Interviews were transcribed from audio recordings and coded using coding software. The codes were then grouped into larger thematic categories based on salience. Results showed that communicative participation is affected by multiple physical, social, and emotional factors caused by OMD. Furthermore, OMD can have significant effects on an individual’s job, family, …

Am I A Bully? A Mixed Methods Phenomenological Study Of The Perspectives And Experiences Of Girls Who Are Relationally Aggressive, Laura A. Hogarth

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This explanatory mixed-methods, phenomenological study investigated how relationally aggressive females perceive and experience their social world. The first, quantitative phase of the study included 237 students (85 males, 152 females) in grades 6 to grade 8 from four different schools. All students completed the quantitative measures of the study; a peer nomination scale of relational aggression, the Basic Empathy Scale (Joliffe & Farrington, 2006), and a self-concept measure, the Self-Description Questionnaire Short Form (Marsh et al., 2005). Female students whose mean relational aggression score was greater than 1 SD about the class mean, and received votes from more than 30% …

Representationalism About Sensory Phenomenology, Matthew Ivanowich

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines representationalism about sensory phenomenology—the claim that for a sensory experience to have a particular phenomenal character is a matter of it having a particular representational content. I focus on a particular issue that is central to representationalism: whether reductive versions of the theory should be internalist or externalist. My primary goals are (i) to demonstrate that externalist representationalism fails to provide a reductive explanation for phenomenal qualities, and (ii) to present a reductive internalist version of representationalism that utilizes the empirical framework of psychophysics and neuroscience to develop a philosophical theory of content. The bulk …

Examining Gifted Students' Transition To University And Its Influence On Learning, Adrienne E. Sauder

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This phenomenological study examined the first-year university transition experience of 39 gifted students and the impact of this transition on their beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of learning through a multiple methods design via semi-structured individual interviews, focus groups, and survey instruments, specifically the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory and the College Survival and Success Scale. In addition, an autoethnographic component was incorporated in order to (a) frame the researcher’s bias, and (b) provide a means of eliciting analytic insights that connect personal experience to broader theoretical issues. The theoretical framework for this study incorporated three complementary theories, symbolic interactionism, role …

For The Good Of The Thing, Sarah Louise Kristine Warren

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What is to be done about the thing? There is a growing interest in contemporary philosophy in re-considering the ontological status of the object – traditionally considered the passive substrate of human experience. This paper argues that, if we treat the object qua object seriously as an area of inquiry and attempt to accord it – à la Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter – a certain amount of agency, we can come to see it as both unique in its capacities and more than superficially enabling of subjective cognition. By using Jane Bennett’s aforementioned text, Clark and Chalmers’ extended mind theory, …

A Phenomenological Study Of Prescription Drug Abuse Among Children And Youth, Eric A. Collins

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prescription drugs ranked as the third highest substance used/abused among Canadian youth (Health Canada, 2014). This research is a retrospective phenomenological study on child and youth prescription drug abuse. Currently, there is a lack of qualitative research in this area. The primary goal of this study is to understand the lived experiences of child and youth prescription drug abuse in order to provide greater depth and breadth into the complexities of this behaviour. Based on the aim of this study, I developed the following research question: what are the lived experiences of prescription drug abuse during childhood and adolescence? Six …

Navigating Life With Hiv: The Lived Experiences Of Youth Living With Hiv, Tamara M M Landry

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Youth and young adults living with HIV, between the ages of 15 and 29 represent one-quarter of the new infection rates in Canada, but little is known about the safer sex practices, HIV disclosure processes and coping mechanisms used by this important but often neglected group to manage the every day realities of living with HIV. The primary objectives of this study were to gather qualitative data about the lived experiences of Canadian youth who are living with HIV and enhance our understanding of their experiences of becoming HIV-positive, navigating issues related to safer sex and HIV disclosure, and managing …

Understanding Women's Health Promotion In Rural Canadian Churches, Robyn Plunkett

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many rural health resources are linked to community churches, which are often well attended, especially by rural women. Thus, the rural church may be an effective health resource for rural Canadian women who have compromised access to health resources. Despite the significant role that the rural church plays in the life of rural communities, there is very limited research that addresses how the church acts or could act as a health resource for rural women. Furthermore, there is limited understanding of how the church as a place may influence health promotion in rural communities. This dissertation explores the relevance of …

Space, Territory, Occupy: Towards A Non-Phenomenological Dwelling, Brett Mommersteeg

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis analyzes the relationship between the body and space through the works of Henri Lefebvre, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The aim of the project is to move beyond Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, which relies on a phenomenological understanding of the body and space. In order to do so, it will find in Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘territory’ a non-phenomenological and constructivist concept of space that does not posit the ‘lived body’ as a transcendent ground. As a result, it will also attempt to trace out a non-phenomenological concept of ‘dwelling’ that is not …

Experiencing Nothing: Anxiety And The Philosophy Of Alain Badiou, William E. Rankin Iv

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis proposes to supplement the philosophy of Alain Badiou with an existentialist account of anxiety. After identifying a “phenomenological deficit” in Badiou’s thought, I argue that Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre provide the conceptual resources for theorizing the affective emergence of subjectivity from within the confines of a determinant situation. My contention, simply, is that anxiety is a rare and unsettling experience of nothing that makes apparent the underlying contingency of all situations, thereby prompting new modes of subjective behavior. In this sense, I treat anxiety as the in-situation experience of an event that may occasion the transition from a …

Learning During The Transition Period: How Identifying Executives As Designate Ceos Affects Their Learning, Rida Mitri Elias

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

CEO succession is an important event in organizations. Around 80% of succession events are relay successions, where a CEO successor is identified a few years before the actual succession event takes place. The success of relay succession compared to horse race and outside successions has been credited to the learning that an heir apparent acquires during the transition period. However, to my knowledge, none of the CEO succession research examines the learning process of heirs apparent.

This study attempts to fill this gap through empirical qualitative research. Using a combination of learning and sensemaking perspectives, this study builds premises proposing …

Community Physiotherapy And Chronic Disease Self-Management For Rural Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Laura J. Graham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Research problem: The majority of older Canadians live with at least one chronic disease. Exercise has been shown to be an effective means to reducing symptoms, and to improving physical dysfunction in chronically ill populations; and self-management is a nationally advocated approach to dealing with the growing health care issue of chronic disease. Physiotherapists are experts in prescribing therapeutic exercise and promoting chronic disease self-management.

Methods: This two-study dissertation explored older adults’ perceptions of exercise as a self-care activity within a chronic disease self-management strategy using focused ethnography; and physiotherapists’ experiences in promoting exercise as a means to chronic disease …