Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Felt Sense Of Interconnectedness: A Qualitative Analysis Of Perceptions On Finding Resilience In The Aftermath Of Trauma Using The Mind-Body Connections Of Yoga, Ashley Collette

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Members and veterans of the military are at an increased risk of exposure to traumatic experiences due to the very nature of their occupation. The most recent statistics on Canada’s deployment to Afghanistan show that 13.2% of the (Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members deployed have been diagnosed with a mental injury within a five year follow up period of redeployment from the theatre of operations. The present preliminary study was designed to examine Yoga as a therapeutic intervention for trauma in a population of CAF members and veterans. The author interviewed 4 service providers and 2 service users of Yoga-based …

Identity Adaptation And The Potential For Psychological Growth Following Adversity For Injured Athletes, Alanna M. Riordan, Jill Tracey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The study was undertaken to gain a deeper understanding of the transition process out of competitive athletics experienced by competitive athletes after a career-limiting injury by examining three research questions: 1) What is the identity adaptation process of injured athletes? 2) To what extent, if any, do injured athletes experience growth following adversity? 3) What, if any, psychological skills are used in the injury/career transition processes? Nine former elite ath- letes were recruited through key informant sampling. There were three males and six females, with a mean age of 24.6 years. All participants sustained, at minimum, a season-ending injury and …

An Exploratory Examination Of Families Engaged In An Adventure Running Kids Program, Heather Isnor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Academics and practitioners have only just begun to delve into the health benefits of outdoor activities in the last few years. In general, the forested settings of these activities have been documented to decrease stress levels, increase recovery rates from disease, and lessen the symptoms of mental illnesses (Kuo & Faber Taylor, 2004). It is believed that the natural environment acts as a setting where humans can engage in physical activity, aesthetic experiences, and social interactions that, in turn, release stress and lead to improved well-being (Bird, 2012). Currently, however, children are experiencing limited exposure to nature and which has …

“It Feels Like Home”: The Impacts Of Supportive Housing On Male Youth – Perspectives Of Youth And Service Providers At Five Beds To Home, Sarah Michelle Ogden

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study identifies the impacts of supportive housing on the lives of male youth. The researcher studied the Five Beds to Home (Five Beds) supportive housing facility for male youth, located in Cambridge, Ontario. The study focused on two areas: one, the current engagement of tenants and second, the long term impacts on past tenants. Impacts include areas such as progress on or achievement of goals/overcoming challenges, employment and education status, happiness and health, and housing stability. The general research questions were as follows: 1) What are the impacts of supportive housing on the lives of male youth?, 2) What …

A Discourse Analysis Of Ontario's Family Health Teams, Rachelle Ashcroft

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Inspired by critical social work practice, this study engages in a discourse analysis of Ontario’s Family Health Team (FHT) model. The purpose for this study is threefold; namely, a) to deepen our understanding of health discourses promoted by Ontario’s FHT model; b) to explore how Ontario’s FHT model compares to Haggerty, Burge, Lévesque, Gass, Pineault, Beaulieu, & Santor’s (2007) conceptual model of PHC; and c) to promote critical reflection in order to help inform decisions on how to improve quality of care and enhance health equity in FHTs. This study is guided using the overarching question: What health care practices …

The Tactile Motion Aftereffect, Peggy Joanne Planetta

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The tactile motion aftereffect (tMAE) is a perceptual phenomenon in which illusory motion is reported following adaptation to a unidirectionally moving tactile stimulus. Unlike its visual counterpart, relatively little is known about the tMAE. For that reason, the purpose of this dissertation was to gain a better understanding of the tMAE using both psychophysical and neuroimaging techniques. In a series of five experiments the skin was adapted using a plastic cylinder with a square-wave patterned surface. Chapter 2 consists of two experiments, both of which adapted the glabrous surface of the right hand. Experiment 1 showed that the prevalence, duration, …

List Composition Effects For Masked Semantic Primes: Evidence Inconsistent With Activation Accounts, Jennifer C. Major

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Priming is the benefit that an event receives when its processing has been preceded by the processing of a related or identical event. Context effects on priming are evident when priming changes as a function of some feature of experimental trials. The most commonly explored context effect is that of relatedness proportion (RP), where it has often been shown that the magnitude of priming (semantic or repetition) is directly related to the proportion of related trials: Increasing the related trials results in greater priming. Although previously thought to depend on strategic processing, recent evidence of context effects from designs using …

'The Aids Is Coming And There Is Nowhere To Run...': Culture, Gender, And The Politics Of Kisongo Maasai Women And Girls' Vulnerability To Hiv/Aids (Immune Deficiency, Tanzania), V. Corey Wright

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis outlines the research findings and implications for practice generated from the, “A Gender Issue: Reducing the Vulnerability of Kisongo Maasai Girls to HIV/AIDS” project, which was a participatory action research (PAR) study in collaboration with the Kisongo Maasai in Northern Tanzania. The objectives of the study were to explore the factors that may contribute to girls’ vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, and develop a culturally-specific framework that may contribute to effective design and administration of program and policy-level interventions. The findings of this study illustrate the ‘politics of health’ that determine girls’ vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. It presents a cultural analysis …

An Exploration Into The Clinical Usefulness Of The Reciprocal And Avoidant Attachment Questionnaires In The Treatment Of Survivors Of Childhood Abuse, Maxine Dawn Barbour

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Secondary analyses were conducted on quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of survivors of childhood abuse (n = 208), enrolled in an in-patient trauma treatment program, to examine the clinical usefulness of the Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire (RAQ) and the Avoidant Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ), (West & Sheldon-Keller, 1994) for this population. Participants who identified an attachment figure completed the RAQ and those who failed to identity an attachment figure completed the AAQ. The relationship between data derived from the attachment measures, and the outcome measures, perceived social support, abuse and demographic variables were examined. Although the RAQ and the AAQ …

Insights: An Exploration Of Experiences With Schizophrenia And Schizoaffective Disorder, Leslie D. St. Jacques

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative study explores the experiences of nine people with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, living in the area of Guelph, Ontario. The stigma and poor prognosis traditionally attached to schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder rage on. The profound disruption caused by the symptoms of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and the social repercussions of receiving these diagnoses, contribute to the individual's disconnection from family and community. Major alterations in the person's social roles and sense of self follow. Stigma and discrimination compound the injury to self-esteem to the extent that a person internalizes them. Yet, however grim the situation appears, …

Client Satisfaction And Goal Achievement: From A Client's View At Cambridge Interfaith Family Counselling Centre, Dawn Diane Yarker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Qualitative interviews were conducted with eleven clients, former and active, at CIFCC (Cambridge Interfaith Family Counseling Centre) to understand how client satisfaction and goal achievement in therapy were related. Content analysis of the interviews revealed that satisfaction with the counsellor, especially rapport building, is the greatest contributory to client satisfaction. This observation is discussed for counselling practice.

Health And Development: Infectious Intestinal Diseases In A Transborder Region (United States-Mexico), Flavia Bianchi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Intestinal infectious diseases are considered the northern Mexican border’s most obvious challenge facing children. The Mexico-US Border region is a 200-kilometer border zone that extends 100 kilometers on either side of an imaginary borderline and stretches 3,141 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. In 2000, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Health Organization’s representative for the Americas, published a study of the top causes of mortality between 1995 and 1997 to estimate the absolute burden of mortality in the primary Mexican and American border community, collectively known as the Sister Cities. Using the PAHO …

Rehabilitation For Deafened Adults: A Puzzle With Missing Pieces, Miguel Oswald Aguayo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study explored the psychological and social impact of adventitious deafness, and the rehabilitation services that were offered to individuals who acquired this condition in adulthood. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of eight deafened adults, who were recruited from across Ontario. The results show that medical interventions (e. g., audiometric testing, hearing aid provision, and cochlear implantation) were relied on exclusively as a rehabilitation approach in providing care to deafened people. None of the study participants were offered individual, family, or group counselling by their hearing health service providers. This lack of attention to the socio-emotional needs of …

Client And Therapist Experiences With A Narrative Therapeutic Summary Format, Peter Duncan Whyte

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative research study explored the use of a narrative therapeutic summary letter format as an adjunctive intervention with clients engaged in individual therapy. The study’s sample consisted of six client subjects who received summary letters from six therapist subjects. Client subjects were furnished with written summaries of four consecutive counselling sessions. The summaries were based on pre-established narrative summary guidelines supplied to each respective therapist. After client subjects had received four consecutive summary letters, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with each client. The aim of these interviews was to explore and document clients’ experiences with the narrative therapeutic summary …

Obstetrical Care In The Baffin Region, Northwest Territories: Geographical, Medical And Cultural Perspectives, Christine Clara Earnshaw

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the Baffin Region, and other regions of the Canadian Arctic, geographic impediments and the history of southern-based health care delivery have influenced the present health care delivery and service. This is especially the case for obstetrical care since the whole process of childbirth has been transformed into a medical issue administered mainly by southern, non-Inuit health care workers and policy makers. Using 350 maternal and infant health records from the Baffin Regional Hospitals from September 1993 to September 1994, variables such as maternal age, fertility rates and low birth weight rates were calculated for communities in the region to …

Children Who Witness Mother-Assault: An Expanded Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Conceptualization, Peter John Lehmann

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The impact on children who witness mother-assault was conceptualized as an expanded posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and an exploratory research study testing this formulation was carried out. The current conceptualization was based in part on the work of V. Wolfe and associates who utilized a model whereby a number of mediating factors were thought to determine adjustment to traumatic. An important part of their model was the utilization of the Type I and II trauma typologies of Terr (1990, 1991). These typologies were used to measure the PTSD symptoms of children in response to the severity and course of mother-assault. …

A Naturalistic Study Of The Relationship Between The Process Of Empowerment And Mental Health During Adolescence, Michael Terrence Ungar

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

A qualitative study of 21 at-risk adolescents led to the development of a grounded theory which shows that mental health and resilience depends on the acceptance of teenagers experiences for their self-definitions and the power they exercise in the social discourse which constructs these defining labels. Using the metaphor of drift, this paper explores how teens seek acceptance for the most powerful personal labels accessible to them. The process of empowerment is conceptualized as a protective mechanism giving a young person power in the social construction of his or her identity. The young people in this study explained that participation …

Hearing Metaphor: A Study Of Clients' Use Of Language In A Family Therapy Situation, Christopher Allen Whynot

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Metaphor is defined as a central function of language by which different realms of experience are conjoined and which operates at the nexus of internal and social processes. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used in an exploratory study of metaphor use by families in therapy. Significant differences were found in quantity of metaphor use along gender and generational axes. Content analysis also identified some suggestive differences with respect to issues of agency and imagery along lines of gender and parenting status. Categories nominated from the identified metaphors are also suggestive of the differential dilemmas faced by the clients. The study …

Pandemic Influenza: An Analysis Of The Spread Of Influenza In Kitchener, October 1918 (Ontario), Niall Phillip Alan Sean Johnson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Influenza remains one of the major killers in modern society. In addition to the mortality it causes, it exacts a huge medical, social and economic toll. Due to its propensity to undergo change, through antigenic drift and shift, this disease continues to torment humankind. These changes are the driving force that enables influenza to periodically become epidemic and pandemic. The study of past pandemics thus may provide useful insight to comb-it the disease now and in the future. The 1918-19 pandemic is one of the three worst outbreaks of disease in recorded history, with only the Justinian plagues and the …

The Effects Of Expectancy, Task Importance And Self-Attention On Task Persistence, Jim Jewett

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study was designed to examine the relative power of control theory (Carver, 1979) and self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977) in predicting behavioral persistence. This study employed a 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design. One hundred and twelve undergraduate females were exposed to high and low levels of self-attention and task importance as well as positive and negative self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. Following failure on an anagram task subjects’ persistence in solving in insoluble design puzzle was assessed. Contrary to the hypotheses, the results suggested that self-efficacy expectancies, outcome expectancies, task importance and self-attention do not influence persistence …

Social Support, Stress, And Young Unwed Mothers' Ability To Cope Effectively With Parenthood, Christina Henninger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Seventy-six single mothers between the ages of 15 and 22 were studied to determine the relationship between stress and social support and to determine their service needs. Of these 76 individuals, 19 were chosen to participate in a Home Visit Program (a self-help support program), while 21 were chosen to act as a control group for the evaluation of the program. It was hypothesized that for the total sample an inverse relationship between stress and support would be found (as support increases, stress decreases). Our findings partially supported this hypothesis. Individuals having high scores for Family Support tended to have …

The Modification Of Smoking Behaviour: A Research Evaluation Of Aversion Therapy, Hypnotherapy, And A Combined Technique, Herman Surkis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study compared aversion therapy, hypnotherapy, and a combined method. It was predicted that the treatment of imagined behaviour would generalize to overt behaviours. Individuals were randomly assigned to one of three groups: the aversion group with shock contingent on imagined behaviour, and finally the combined group which consisted of traditional hypnotherapy in combination with aversion therapy. The treatments were contained on separate cassettes with each subject receiving his appropriate cassette. Subjects met in groups of 3-5 individuals, twice a week for three weeks. Individuals acted as their own controls through the establishment of a pre-treatment baseline of smoking rate. …

An Assessment Of The Role Of Information Inherent In Positive And Aversive Social Reinforcement Employing A Finger Maze Task With Male And Female Subjects And Experimenters, Brian Westley Strutt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Forty-eight male and 48 female grade 12 high school students were assigned in groups of 8 to a 2 (sex of S X 3 (treatment) X 2 (sex of E) factorial design experiment. Each S was presented with a finger maze task under one of three experimental treatments: censure-nothing with S being told “WRONG” for an incorrect response, nothing for a correct response; reward-nothing, with S being told “CORRECT” for a correct response, nothing for an incorrect response; nothing-nothing, with Ss being told nothing for either a correct or incorrect response. The task required that a binary decision be made …

Shock Intensity And Task Difficulty As Determiners Of Avoidance And Escape Learning In Rats, Arthur Louis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Thirty-six naive female hooded rats were divided randomly into three groups and tested in an instrumental escape and avoidance learning situation involving three degrees of task difficulty. Each group was also randomly subdivided into four subgroups, each of which underwent a different shock intensity level. The purpose of this study was to test the Yorkes-Dodson law which states that (a) there is an optimal level of punishment intensity for any given task (or an inverted-U curve relating shock intensity and performance) and (b) this optimal intensity decreases as task difficulty increases. The results supported (a) but not (b).

A Study Of The Amphetamine Abuser: Personality Characteristics And “Meaning To Life”, Terrence L. Esch

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This paper will review the literature on amphetamine abuse after which I will discuss some implications for treatment. I will propose an empirical study that should help clarify a major assumption that is apparent in the literature. This study will then point out the possibility of a method of treatment that can be effective in helping amphetamine abusers.

The papers consists of three major themes: (a) Review of the Literature, (b) Implications for treatment, and (c) a proposed empirical study questioning the difference of personality traits and “meaning to life” between amphetamine abusers and youth who are considered to be …

Multi-Family Group Treatment Of Multi-Problem Families: Preliminary Study, Judith S. Duckman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.