Psychology Commons^™

Does The Intake Method Affect Client Return Rate In A Community Counseling Center?, Ronald J. Nielsen

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

There is a large body of research examining the effects of client, therapist, and treatment modality variables on client outcome in mental health treatment. However, there are only a handful of retrospective studies of the intake process and its effect on client dropout or retention. The genesis of this research study was to examine and evaluate the intake methods of a community based, not for profit counseling center. The clinic found that clients would fail to return for therapy following an intake interview with a different counselor. Feedback from stakeholders indicated that the formal intake process was inefficient and direct …

“Las Experiencias De Padres Con Hijos Discapacitados” Lived Experiences Of Mexican-Immigrant Parents Of Children With Identified Disabilities, Christina Cortez

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

A nurturing and engaging environment within the family often leads to enhanced student performance. Nonetheless, the education system continues to struggle to connect with families from racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse groups, particularly parents with limited English proficiency or those who have children in special education programs. Amplified difficulties may arise because children with identified special needs—such as physical impairments, learning deficiencies, or developmental disabilities—require additional support, interventions, parental support, and/or services. As the nation attempts to mainstream children in public education and provide them support, Mexican immigrant families in many cases remain underrepresented, or they fall into greater risk …

Teachers’ Experience With Problematic Behavior And Educational Support: A Phenomenological Inquiry, Kristen Michelle Brashear

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation was conducted to discover how teachers of elementary and middle school-aged children experience the phenomenon of problematic behavior in their classrooms and the support they receive from the educational system in this regard. The literature review revealed that there is a dearth of research using a purely qualitative approach to exploring the experience of teachers in this area. The idea that teachers are rarely asked how they experience problematic behavior and support was evident in the findings of this study. I conducted this study using a phenomenological approach to interview six teachers from three states. The interviews were …

Motivating Clients To Exercise: Improving Adherence To Exercise-Based Treatment Through Psychoeducation, Reed Andrew Vierra

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Exercise has been consistently shown to have a positive effect on both physical and mental health, with past studies indicating exercise as an adjunctive treatment for diagnoses such as Major Depressive Disorder. However, despite the knowledge of exercise’s benefits, 80% of Americans do not regularly meet recommended levels of exercise in a week. Past studies have been hampered by high drop-out rates, as participants have difficulty sustaining a new exercise regimen over time. This study focused on understanding the motivational processes which sustained experienced exercisers. With the information gleaned from experienced exercisers in addition to past research on human motivation, …

Empty Cribs: Infertility Challenges For Orthodox Jewish Couples, Itay Kohane

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation discusses an issue that is of importance to many people throughout their lifetime—infertility. One in every eight couples (12%) is incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term after one year of natural attempts. This paper further examines the prevalence of infertility among couples, bringing into focus more common variables such as gender and age. But, going beyond these, the present study will demonstrate that other variables including stressors such as social factors, interpersonal dynamics, and personal judgment affect couples in a manner which indirectly reduces their chances of conceiving a child. This research will touch on a number …

Examining Optimism And Caregiver Strain In Parents With Youth And Young Adults Diagnosed With Anxiety And Unipolar Mood Disorders, Jennifer M. Gross

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

An anonymous online survey investigated optimism and caregiver strain in parents of youth and young adults diagnosed with anxiety and unipolar depression. Caregiver strain is a

well-researched phenomenon where the experience of parenting youth with serious psychological disorders has a potentially negative impact on parents and caregivers. Optimism is a trait that confers resiliency and improved coping to the individual. The relationship between caregiver strain and optimism is not well understood. This inquiry utilized the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (CGSQ) to measure caregiver strain and the Life Orientation Test, Revised

(LOT-R) to measure optimism. Participants endorsed significantly higher scores on the …

Resilience In Adult Women Who Experienced Early Mother Loss, Elizabeth Schmitz-Binnall

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The primary purpose of this dissertation study was to explore levels of resilience in adult women whose mothers died when the participants were children. The death of a mother during an individual’s childhood is an adverse event that can affect all areas of that person’s life. It is intuitive to believe that early mother death would cause long-term effects on the overall resilience levels of the individuals; however, there has been minimal research exploring resilience in this population. With a sample of 245 women throughout the United States, this study used the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC-25) to begin investigating …

Marital Satisfaction Of Couples In Heterosexual Relationships Where There Are Differences In Spirituality, Collins Anaeche

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

As the dynamics of the United States’ social landscape shifts in relation to the diversity of culture, ethnicity, values, and traditions, and as religion and spirituality have become highly diverse and fluid, diversity in spirituality has received limited attention in the field of marriage and family therapy. Utilizing an interpretative phenomenological analysis, this qualitative investigation explores common meanings and experiences of emotional intimacy of couples in heterosexual relationships where there are differences in spirituality. Overall, the results of this investigation demonstrate that in situations where heterosexual couples who display differences in spirituality attentively attuned to their individual and relational needs, …

Confusing Conversations: Assessing Traumatic Stress In Young Children, Jennifer Lela Moniz

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Early detection and interventions are important for the prevention of negative long-term effects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Current evaluations of PTSD in young children rely heavily on caregiver reports, and there are few self-report measures for children under 8 years old (Mash & Barkley, 2007). This study examined the construct validity of the Post Traumatic Symptom Inventory for Children (PT-SIC), a self-report measure of PTSD symptomatology for young children, through a comparison of results with the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC), an empirically supported caregiver measure of child PTSD symptomatology. Results of the Spearman correlation indicated that …

Beyond Dissociation And Appropriation: Evaluating The Politics Of U.S. Psychology Via Hermeneutic Interpretation Of Culturally Embedded Presentations Of Yoga, Genelle N. Benker

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Psychology in the United States (U.S.) is partially constituted by a cultural history of intellectual imperialism that undermines its altruistic intent and prevents disciplinary reflexivity. The scholarship and clinical application of Yoga exemplifies the way U.S. psychology continues to give lived authority to imperialism as part of the neoliberal agenda. Through a hermeneutic literature analysis of two source Yogic texts and peer-reviewed articles that exemplify the dominant discourse on Yoga in U.S. psychology, this dissertation identified themes that describe culturally embedded presentations of Yoga and their sociopolitical implications. Through interpretation, Yoga was conceptualized as: (a) a 5,000 year-old tradition that …

Coercive And Compulsive Treatment Of Eating Disorders: Surveying Treatment Providers’ Attitudes And Behavior., Jessica Cowan

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Stigma toward individuals with eating disorders is common and well-documented. Individuals with eating disorders regularly report experiencing stigma associated with perceptions that they are to blame for their illness, that their illness is trivial compared to other conditions, or that they are engaging in disordered behavior to gain attention. These stigmatizing attitudes toward eating disorders are also reported by the general public and healthcare professionals, including those who treat eating disorders. Treatment of these illnesses at all levels of care often include paternalistic approaches such as coercion and compulsion that can have both adverse and advantageous consequences. While there are …

Living Through The Chilean Coup D’Etat: The Second-Generation’S Reflection On Their Sense Of Agency, Civic Engagement And Democracy, Denise Tala Diaz

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation illuminates how the experience of growing up during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990) affected the individual's sense of self as citizen and the impact on their sense of democratic agency, civic-mindedness, and political engagement in their country's current democracy. To understand that impact, the researcher chose to study her own generation, the “Pinochet-era” generation (Cummings, 2015) and interviewed those who were part of the Chilean middle class, who despite not being explicit victims of perpetrators, were raised in dictatorship and surrounded by abuse of state power including repression, disappearance, and imprisonment. The theoretical frame of the Socio-Political Development Theory …

The Use Of Mobile Social Technology As Transitional Objects Impact On Personality Functioning, Peter Gleiberman

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact unlimited connectivity and unlimited access to voice, text, and video communication as well as multimedia content consumption through mobile social technology has on personality integration. The increased use of mobile social technology has changed how the user engages social relationships. Through mobile social technology, the user places importance in an inanimate object for engagement of social relationships. A reliance on the inanimate object as a social relationship is thought to compromise the ability to internalize integrated object relations and develop stable personality organization. This theoretical research uses hermeneutic analysis of …

Moral Reconation Therapy: Efficacy And Predictors Of Dropout, Amber Maiwald

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

No known research has been conducted on whether Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) actually reduces criminogenic thinking. Similarly, no known research has been conducted to identify factors associated with dropout from the MRT program (i.e., choosing to leave the group before completion/release). Therefore, the purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to discover whether MRT reduces criminogenic thinking, and (b) to determine if criminogenic thinking, ACEs, cognitive abilities, and personality traits, particularly impulsivity, psychoticism, and antisocial traits, influence dropout. If significant effects in one or more of the aforementioned areas are discovered, individuals predicted to have the same profile as past …

Adolescent Perspectives On Media Use: A Qualitative Study, April Fiacco

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study looks at adolescents’ engagement with media and explores their perceptions of how media plays a role in their lives. For the purpose of this study, media includes watching television shows, watching and reading the news, and involvement in various types of social media. The influence of parents and peers is also explored to examine adolescents’ views of whether parent and peer opinions affect the types of media with which the adolescent participants choose to engage. The study used a semi structured interview to collect data with participants from a Massachusetts public high school. The data were analyzed …

Client Perceptions Of The Therapy Room: Effects Of Homely Therapeutic Landscapes, Amanda Knapp

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

There is very limited research exploring the effects of a homely therapeutic landscape design on the psychological wellbeing of clients attending outpatient psychotherapy. In particular, very little is known about the impact of office design on client perceptions of their therapist and the quality of care they anticipate receiving. Ample data support the idea of healing environments; this has important implications for the field of clinical psychology. The theoretical framework underlying this study is the Tripartite Model, which states that people view spaces as most meaningful when they promote positive feelings of comfort, belonging, and security. Focusing on college students …

Bhutanese Refugee Families’ Experience In Community Engagement And Its Influence On Their Family Relationships, Jinsook Song

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Many refugees that come to the United States experience loss and separation from their norms, home, community, friends, and more. While resettling, they often deal with unfamiliarity, confusion, and uncertainty. They need support and resources to restore their losses and integrate into a host country’s culture and norms. Community plays an important role in providing support and resources to refugees during resettlement in the United States. Previous studies that explored the community’s role in refugee resettlement were focused on an individual level. There is a lack of research on how refugee families engage in community and how their community engagement …

Shame In The Supervisory Hour: Do Supervisors Sense What Is Hidden?, Melanie R. Harkins

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Shame inevitably arises for psychologists in training, as they are required to expose potential mistakes or oversights in their personal and professional selves (Hahn, 2001). However, studies show that shame impedes supervisee’s willingness to disclose information to the supervisor, especially regarding clinical difficulties (Ladany et al., 1996; Yourman, 2003) or concerns with professional competence (Ladany & Lehrman-Waterman, 1999). The presence of shame in supervision threatens the assumption of most supervision models: supervisees will willingly disclose pertinent information (Falender & Shafranske, 2004). Fortunately, strong supervisory relationships can buffer negative emotions and supervisors can encourage disclosures (Hess et al., 2008). Utilizing qualitative …

Police Officer Trauma In Rural Minnesota: A Narrative Study, John J. Littlewolf

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

We call on police officers to respond to all of society’s tragedies. Whether in our metropolitan areas or our rural communities, law enforcement will respond when called upon. The culture of law enforcement is laden with traits of masculinity. These cultural traits can inhibit the processing of traumatic experiences in the individual. While the nature of law enforcement has remained the same, our scientific knowledge regarding trauma has grown. Trauma has a biological impact which can manifest as stress symptomology or PTSD. Our systematic response to trauma in law enforcement has not kept pace with the body of knowledge on …

Stepping Outside: A Quantitative Study Exploring Nature’S Effect On Therapist Compassion, Dana N. Vitrano

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation explored the impact of spending time in nature on therapist levels of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction for office- and nature-based therapists. While the study mainly focused on office-based therapists, a sample of nature-based therapists were included for exploratory purposes as they constitute a unique niche of mental health workers who combine traditional talk therapy methods and the healing properties of nature. The literature is reviewed within an ecopsychology frame, key terms are defined, and nature’s impact on mental health and wellbeing is explored. One hundred fifty participants (124 office-based, 26 nature-based) were included in this study. They …

Cultural Constructions Of Sexual Relationships Between Female Teachers And Male Students, Tessa M. Palmer

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

While examples of sexual relationships between male high school teachers and female students have been historically prominent, relationships wherein the respective genders are reversed have received increased attention. Research on perceptions of sexual relationships between female high school teachers and their male students has focused primarily on the perceived differences between these relationships and those between male high school teachers and their female students. To explain the effect that gender appears to have on the perceptions of sexual relationships between female high school teachers and their male students, much of the literature has pointed to cultural constructions of gender, which …

To Empathize Or Iempathize: Social Networking And Adolescent Female Friendships, Jennifer A. Schonberg

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Through qualitative methodology, this dissertation aimed to explore adolescent girls’ use of social networking sites (SNS) and the impact these sites could be having on girls’ development of empathy and their ability to address conflict in their friendships. The topic is introduced by outlining the relevant statistics and through highlighting some of the negative and positive influences of SNS use on adolescent female life. Carol Gilligan’s theory of moral development is explained and used to frame the research questions for this phenomenological research study. Section One of this dissertation reviews the current literature on this topic, including how social media …

A Drama-Based Group Intervention For Adolescents To Improve Mentalization, Michael S. Goddard

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation is an innovative intervention design to improve mentalization in preadolescents. The intervention presented is conducted in a group format and using techniques drawn from drama-based therapy. I have provided a brief literature review on mentalization, and relevant topics in group treatment and drama therapy. I have outlined key concepts from mentalization theory including: (a) the development of the self, (b) its relationship to attachment, (c) psychic equivalence and pretend mode functioning, (d) marked-affect mirroring, (e) the various facets of mentalization, and (f) mentalization treatment with children. After outlining these concepts, I discuss psychodynamic group treatment, mentalization-based group therapy, …

An Exploration Of Overparenting And College Student Ability To Manage The Stress Associated With College Life, Isabelle Creste

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

There has been an increase in the level of anxiety, perceived stress, and mental health problems among college students. An examination of the contributions of parenting to these increases may help in improving college student mental health; however, research is limited in this area. This study examined the associations between overparenting, and other types of parenting including, authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting, and differentiation of self, cognitive emotion regulation, perceived stress, and state and trait anxiety. The participants were 163 undergraduate college students (74.8% identified as cisgender women, 25.2% identified as cisgender men). The participants completed questionnaires that described their …

Why Patients Miss Appointments At An Integrated Primary Care Clinic, Katherine Lambos Wilsey

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Missed appointments in primary care clinics is of import given the significant impact not only on patients’ continuity of care, but also on the larger healthcare system. Missed appointments indicate that there are barriers to patients’ access of health care and these contribute to poor health outcomes. Further, missed appointments lead to financial and capacity issues for primary care clinics while also contributing towards higher patient utilization of emergency department services, for medical problems traditionally treated by primary care. Integrated primary care clinics offer both medical and mental health services to patients by way of employing behavioral health consultants to …

Emotional Response To Climate Change Learning: An Existential Inquiry, Jennifer Hutchinson

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study aims to explore and explain the existential underpinnings of learning about climate change and potential emotional responses to climate change learning. Undergraduate students in environmental sciences and studies classes at the University of Washingrounded theory on in Seattle, WA participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked about their experiences learning about climate change and how they responded emotionally to the learning. This dissertation examines the responses from those interviews and builds a theory out of the data analyzed. Constructivist Grounded theory as outlined by Kathy Charmaz (2014) was used to analyze the interviews. Codes were created and …

Saving A Seat For A Sister: A Grounded Theory Approach Exploring The Journey Of Women Reaching Top Policing Executive Positions, Nicola D. Smith-Kea

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The world of women in law enforcement is a thought-provoking one that has received increasing attention both in academia as well as in practice over the past few decades. Even more intriguing, and despite advances in the profession, is the low number of women in executive leadership positions in law enforcement. There is a vast underrepresentation of women in top executive leadership positions across the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the complex journey of women to top executive policing leadership positions. Embracing a positive psychology approach, …

A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Client Experience Of The Psychotherapy Relationship, Mark D. Knutzen

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Meta-analyses have indicated that there are likely common factors across varied treatment modalities that account for the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Research has attempted to identify therapist and treatment relationship components that correlate with effective mental health treatment. Yet, there is a paucity of research directly addressing the qualitative experience of the relationship between psychotherapists and their clients.

Eight adult psychotherapy clients were interviewed regarding their experience of the psychotherapy relationship with their mental health therapist. The interviews were analyzed through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven themes emerged. Three themes related to the formation, and overall foundation of …

The Descendants Of Hurao: An Exploratory Study Of Chamoru Rights Groups, Alan T. Butler

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The psychological literature conducted in Guam on indigenous practices of resistance to colonialism is nonexistent. This dissertation responds to this absence in the literature by conducting an exploratory hermeneutic study on the lived experience of members of Chamoru rights groups in Guam. Data for this study were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight members of Chamoru rights groups. Results indicated that engagement in a Chamoru rights group can be a deeply meaningful experience that involves education, activism, and being part of a supportive community. This community was felt to be healing, allowing for active engagement with community issues and against …

Cultural Differences, Social Support, And Therapy Outcomes: A Comparative Study Between Individualist And Collectivist Cultures, Veronica Felstad

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Social support plays an integral role in our lives, and recent research demonstrates that the presence or lack of social support has a potential impact on factors of interest to psychologists, such as therapeutic progress and therapeutic alliance. There is a lack of research demonstrating the relationship between social support and treatment outcomes and the role culture plays. This quantitative international study aimed to explore cultural variances in perceptions, utilizations, and functions of social support, particularly between individualist and collectivist cultures, and the potential effect these variances had on the relationship between social support and therapeutic outcomes. Sixty clients and …