http://hdl.handle.net/10142/37232 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:30:25 GMT 2013-06-20T08:30:25Z http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285132 Title: An Investigation into the Experiences and Attitudes RegardingTherapists’ Verbal Self-Disclosure from the Developing Counselling Psychologists’ Perspective: A Phenomenological Study. Authors: Vasileiadou, Aikaterini Abstract: This study explores the phenomenon of therapists’ verbal self-disclosure in the therapeutic encounter. The purpose is to examine the clients’ experiences and attitudes on therapists’ verbal self-disclosure, when the clients are counselling psychology trainees or newly qualified counselling psychologists. The present study will attempt to discover what the participants believe constitutes self-disclosure and how influential their therapists’ verbal self-disclosure or lack of it, has been in the development of their personal and professional stance on self-disclosure in their own work with clients. Since the researcher is interested in clients who themselves are developing counselling psychologists, the study sheds light on how their therapists’ verbal disclosure (or lack of it) influences their developing professional identity. The majority of studies exploring therapists’ self-disclosure have favoured quantitative methodologies; however, a case can be made for using a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore this phenomenon on the grounds that it provides a more detailed representation of the experience and allows for an in-depth phenomenological understanding of the complexity and content of self-disclosure. Nine developing counselling psychologists were interviewed for this study and the three major findings of the study are that a) developing counselling psychologists, influenced by their own personal therapy, do engage in counter-transference self-disclosure, b) the decision to engage in self-disclosure or not is made upon their intuition and ‘gut feeling’ and c) although training institutions or supervisors might not encourage self-disclosure, participants still engage in it. These findings raise questions concerning the role of training versus the role of personal therapy in shaping trainees’ client work, as well as issues regarding the reasons why they chose to self-disclose or not and the role of intuition. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285132 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285072 Title: The Impact of the Experience of Working with CBT on Counselling Psychologists’ Professional Identity Authors: Mantica, Valentina Abstract: Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a therapeutic modality which is commonly argued to be oriented to a medical model, and so to diverge significantly in theory and practice from the traditional relational and humanistic roots of counselling psychology. A large body of literature and research exists which examines counselling psychologists’ professional identity in medical settings, but there appears to be a significant gap in the extant literature relating to how counselling psychologists experience professional identity specifically in the practice of CBT, a therapeutic modality which presently provides a considerable amount of employment for counselling psychologists. To address this gap, the present study sought to explore qualitatively whether counselling psychologists’ experience of their professional identity is affected by the inclusion of CBT in their practice. A sample of eight counselling psychologists who worked with CBT and had been qualified for at least five years were interviewed. Data gathered from the semistructured interviews were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a method selected because it is concerned with the detailed examination of personal lived experience and the meaning of experience to participants. The methodology was approached within the contextual constructionist epistemological framework. Three superordinate themes, each containing four subordinate themes, emerged from participants’ accounts: (i) components of professional identity; (ii) the contribution of CBT to the professional self; and (iii) how CBT compromises the professional self. The findings are discussed in relation to the relevant literature, and lines of enquiry that have emerged have been located in current postmodern literature, arguments and debates. One main conclusion of the present study is that feeling comfortable with CBT can CBT, Counselling Psychology and Professional Identity 3 depend upon practitioners’ initial training, personal experience, cultural background, personal characteristics and personal beliefs – that is, the professional self as emerging from the personal self. Clinical implications, methodological limitations, directions for future research and reflections upon the researcher’s reflexivity are presented. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285072 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285070 Title: Invoking a Culture - Deploying a Past : Albanian Identifications and Translocal Encounters Authors: Schwandner-Sievers, Stephanie Abstract: This thesis traces internal and external identity constructions of Albanians through recourse to specific local Albanian pasts in post-socialist, including post-war, translocal and globalised realms of encounters. In this the main (but not exclusive) focus is on the role of traditionalist signifiers, their historical legacy and the ways in which these have informed perceptions of Albanianness both of themselves and by others, sometimes in unexpected complicity. My publications, as assembled in this thesis, demonstrate that identity-constitutive recourse to specific pasts, particularly to tropes of pre-communist north-Albanian customary law, frequently and stereotypically subsumed under the Ottoman term, kanun, have shaped and framed not just ideas about Albanianness but also served to delineate concrete social relations and relations of power, to justify social and political exclusion and inclusion as well as practices of resistance and subversion both between and among Albanians as well as with non-Albanians alike. Such identity constructions in traditionalist terms of Self or Other, respectively, as observed during the last twenty years in multi-sited ethnography, emerged from and were negotiated at, interconnected arenas of power where people as well as ideas about Albanians meet and matter still today with real social and political consequences in practice. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285070 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285068 Title: Being ‘heard’ in the counselling relationship. An investigation into the experience of hard of hearing clients. Authors: Knight, Sarah Abstract: This qualitative study concerns the notion of being 'heard’, with a focus on the counselling relationship. The term ‘hearing’ is used as a metaphorical concept and its definition forms part of the investigation. The study initially focuses on the hard of hearing client and their position between the Deaf and hearing worlds. Hard of hearing people are viewed as an important client group whose needs are frequently overlooked. There is a review of the literature relevant to the hard of hearing individual and disability in the counselling relationship. This is followed by a broader consideration of the meaning of ‘hearing’. Included in this literature is ‘hearing’ from the perspective of developmental psychology relating to non-verbal communication, ‘hearing’ through language and ‘hearing’ the other. Following a methodological discussion, an adapted Foucauldian discourse analysis is applied to interview data from nine hard of hearing participants. The findings illustrate dominant discourses in action and also discourses of resistance. The dominant discourses suggest the power and politics involved in the counselling venture and the resistance shows the alternative subject positions the participants created and their agency in the process of being ‘heard’. Following this analysis, a discussion develops, which involves ideas around embodied and ethical 'hearing' in both the research process and within counselling. The study does not aim to provide any stability to the notion of ‘hearing’ in the counselling relationship, but contributes to the field of counselling psychology in creatively exploring the ambiguous term. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10142/285068 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z