An Internal and External Contextual Autoethnography of a Single Mother\u27s Experience as it Intersects with Misogyny, Patriarchy, and Hegemonic Masculinity

This dissertation is a contextual autoethnography of my lived experience with stigmatization, stereotypes, and institutional obstructions as a divorced single mother who previously experienced intimate partner violence and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The purpose of the study is to shed light on the complexity of the single motherhood experience, both internally and externally. From 2009 to 2019, the institutions I accessed for assistance as a single mother and those I interacted with for my children, my job, my health, and even within the church were unnecessarily burdensome financially, physically, and emotionally. This dissertation takes a contextual look at print media, legal statutes, laws, other domestic violence cases, court cases, and institutional issues in my lifetime that may have affected either those I encountered or my perceptions. While looking at my autoethnography and the contextual experience of the time period, I will also be examining Jack Holland’s (2006) A Brief History of Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice to extend his findings into the realm of a single mother’s lived experience. Holland’s work will show how the dualism of misogyny has infiltrated every institution through patriarchy’s ideal conception of family, which uses hegemonic masculinities as its strong-arm enforcer for societal control with stereotypes and stigmatizations as the quickest way to keep single mothers in line. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu/) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)

The Lived Experience of the Covid-19 Pandemic among Mandate-Resistant Adults in Washington State

This study examined the lived experience of self-identified, mandate-resistant adults in Washington state. This study explored participants’ experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, from a retrospective framework by uncovering challenges, silver linings, decision-making, and self-reported mental health. Remote interviews were conducted with nine participants. Participants were between 23–31 years old, mostly male, and over half identified as Black. Through semi structured interviews, data was collected and analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants described their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted significant changes in the way they lived their lives. Most notably, participants described ways in which they defied COVID-19 mandates and the losses they faced, along with adjustment, coping, isolation, moving forward, questioning, and distress. Due to their stance regarding the pandemic, participants often felt alienated and distrusting. This resulted in decreases in mental health. As the pandemic waned, participants noted having a greater appreciation for in-person interactions, valuing close relationships, and investing themselves in more travel. Participants experienced great losses during the pandemic but emerged with a more defined sense of self. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)

Relationships Harm, Relationships Heal: Exploring Larger Bodied People\u27s Experiences of Weight Stigma and Eating Disorders in the Context of Family Relationships

Eating Disorders are the second deadliest mental illness, after opioid addiction, and affect a significant amount of the population, with some studies estimating that almost one in ten people will struggle with an eating disorder in their lifetime and that many more will suffer from subclinical eating disorder symptoms like disordered eating (Deloitte Access Economics, 2020). The majority of people struggling with an eating disorder are not medically underweight, and traditionally eating disorder research and treatment has failed to address eating disorders in people in larger bodies (Galmiche et al., 2019). To better understand the needs and experiences related to eating disorders in people in larger bodies, research needs to explore the emotional, relational, and psychological impact of experiences of weight stigma in people in larger bodies who are recovering from an eating disorder/eating-related distress. Specifically, there is little information about how experiences of weight stigma during eating disorder recovery impacts the course of recovery, and particularly stigma from family and partners. Accordingly, this qualitative phenomenological research aims to understand said experiences. The study consisted of semi-structured interviews with 12 participants yielding results comprised of four themes and 16 subthemes. The four primary themes are: It Matters That It Comes From Family, It’s Different When You’re Fat, Weight Stigma Harms Relationships, and Relationships Heal. The results highlight the importance of understanding the pervasive and lasting impact that family relationships have on people in the context of eating disorders and the specific experiences of people in larger bodies. Similarly, the results clearly show the importance of relationships in recovery overall. The results and subsequent discussion shed light on the importance of working directly with and combatting weight stigma at the family system and societal levels in order to create more significant and meaningful change for people struggling with eating-related distress, and particularly for people in larger bodies

Artistic Engagement with Monadnock: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study

This hermeneutic phenomenological study discloses the lived experience of creating art in association with New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock. This study reveals the potential for artistic invention in association with place gradually to undermine an established sense of separation from environment and to prompt conscious awareness of continuity with environment. A series of interviews with four artists who create art of or in the presence of Monadnock revealed in the lived experience of creating Monadnock art a process that consists of five phases: first encounter, abstract appreciation, existential understanding, sustained attention, and continuity. A hermeneutic circular method of interpretation based upon the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Hans Georg Gadamer was used to interpret this experiential process in conjunction with Arnold Berleant’s non-conceptual environmental aesthetics of engagement and with various works in the field of ecological ontology. In addition to disclosing the aesthetic experiential dimensions of artistic invention in association with place, this circular interpretive process revealed two practical points of tension: one between the descriptive and the prescriptive dimensions of Berleant’s aesthetic model and another between the intellectual medium and the holistic message of ecological ontological literature. Ultimately, this study indicated the possibility for artistic invention in association with place in the experience of the artist to resolve these points of tension, to undermine the hegemony of the ontological dualism that causes ecological crisis, and to prompt an holistic sense of being in the world that might motivate ecological restoration

To Change Everything, We Need Everyone: Belonging, Equity, and Diversity in the U.S. Climate Movement

Climate change affects everyone but lack of racial diversity in the climate movement makes it challenging for it to be truly inclusive, champion solutions that are equitable, and affect transformative change. This dissertation describes a two-part study of diversity in the climate movement using a survey of 1,003 climate activists and interviews with 17 people of color who work or volunteer in the U.S. climate movement. The study analyzes differences between Whites and people of color in terms of their (a) demographics, (b) engagement in climate action, (c) experience of climate impacts, (d) worries, (e) challenges and barriers to participation, and (f) proposed strategies for diversity, equity, and belonging. My research provides the following takeaways: (a) Progress has been made in terms of diversity in the U.S. climate movement, but diversity is insufficient without equity belonging. (b) Anti-racism must go beyond symbolic gestures towards deep transformation at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels. (c) Oppression is intersectional, with racism intersecting with other oppressions of gender, age, class, physical ability, among other identities. (d) People of color and those with marginalized identities contribute essential perspectives and skills to the climate movement. The discussion includes implications for theory, practice, and further study

Exploring personhood in contemporary times from leadership to philosophy

With the dawn of research into leader-behaviors, scholars differentiated between being task-oriented, which is important, and also being people-oriented. People matter. And we tend to guard against leader attitudes that treat persons as objects, as passive or inert, as instruments, as so much clay to be shaped and molded. Hannah Arendt (1958) rejected the idea that leadership is like work, in which a craftsman picks up the raw materials and the requisite tools in order to create a product according to an image in his head. No, she said, leadership is social action in which we all participate, each with his or her unique and creative spontaneity, collaborating in an erratic cascade toward the future. Leadership is something people do together. And to achieve that vision, we must acknowledge each other as persons and not as figures in a ledger or pieces on a chessboard. This volume is intended as a call to be curious about what we take for granted as individuals, educators, and leaders. In essence to ask ourselves the more difficult questions about who we are as we recognize our need for others within a community? What does it mean to be a person and to recognize another\u27s personhood? Nathan Harter (2021) draws us into a space to dialogue with ourselves about the notion of personhood as leaders. So, what does it mean to be a person? And what does it mean to treat someone as a person? What does anyone owe another person? (p. 4). In what way then do leaders contend with such questions as they are becoming; becoming better leaders, becoming better individuals, becoming their sacred selves. A person-centered ethic would be universal in scope, yet adapted to local conditions that many leaders must deal with on a daily basis. Nearly every religion already addresses both what it means to become a person and what one owes a person ethically, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, or other affiliation. Regardless if organizations deal directly with the notion of personhood, leaders deal with the workplace challenges of which the human bring him or her entire self to the unit. Hence, a comprehensive and integrate context forces us to revisit our assumptions about who exactly is a person and what they might deserve. This volume would bring those voices into conversation. In addition, we intend to complicate the question by extending similar questions into emerging areas of increasing relevance in a technological age that crosses geographic boundaries, such as online presences, corporate entities, and the prospects of Artificial Intelligence. If anything, an expanded interdisciplinary and global context makes this volume relevant and timely for leaders and leadership studies across multiple fields of study and professions -- Provided by publisher.https://aura.antioch.edu/facbooks/1095/thumbnail.jp

I wonder...? The Presence and Implications of Curiosity as a Foundational Ingredient Across Couple and Family Therapy Models

Theoretical and anecdotal accounts highlight the power of curiosity within the therapeutic process of particular models of therapy, with specific influences noted in regard to forming, maintaining, and evolving intra- and interpersonal relationships. The mention of curiosity in the therapeutic process is not surprising given its profound and evidence-based influence on the promotion of relationships and influence on social-emotional health and well-being. What is surprising however, is the lack of comprehensive review and exploration into how exactly curiosity is being conceptually used within and across therapeutic models. Additionally, such a review is missing in terms of whether curiosity is model dependent or is perhaps an integral piece of the larger therapeutic common factors’ movement. To address this aforementioned gap between curiosity and the therapeutic process, I (BTH) and my research team (T.B. and M.F.) reviewed 28 book length texts that encompassed seven different theoretical approaches to therapy. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was utilized, wherein quantitative data showed that the included language of curiosity was used 773 times between the 28 included texts. These 773 data points were then analyzed through a deductive qualitative process based on the sensitizing constructs of the therapeutic pyramid. Throughout this analysis, curiosity was most commonly coded as being a skill/technique, with additional coding of the therapeutic alliance and a way of being. The therapeutic pyramid was efficacious in describing the various functions of curiosity. However, upon further review and analysis, the research team\u27s conceptualization of curiosity was refined to two primary themes: connection and challenge. It is within each of these two headings where the value of curiosity lies across therapeutic modalities, as curiosity independently or simultaneously served as a conceptual tool for promoting connection and relationships while also functioning as an agent of challenge, growth, and change

Children Tell Landscape-Lore among Perceptions of Place: Relating Ecocultural Digital Stories in a Conscientizing/Decolonizing Exploration

We know that when children feel a sense-of-relation within local natural environments, they are more prone to feel concern for them, while nurturing well-being and resilience in themselves and in lands/waters they inhabit. Positive environmental behaviors often follow into adulthood. Our human capacities for creating sustainable solutions in response to growing repercussions of global warming and climate change may grow if more children feel a sense of belonging in the wild natural world. As educators, if we listen to and learn from students’ voices about how they engage in nature, we can create pedagogical experiences directly relevant to their lives. Activities that relate to learners’ lives inspire motivation, curiosity, and furthers understanding. Behaviors supporting environmental stewardship, environmental justice, and participation in citizen science and phenology are more probable when children feel concern for ecological landscapes. Internationally, some educators are free to encourage a sense-of -relation by bringing students into natural places. Yet, there are many educators who are constrained from doing so by strict local, state, and national education policies and accountability measures. Overcoming restrictions requires creative, relevant, and enjoyable learner-centered opportunities. Research shows that virtual nature experiences can provide for beneficial connections with(in) nature for children and adults. It is best to bring children outside. When this is not possible, a sense of wonder may be encouraged in the classroom. Our exploratory collaborative digital landscape-lore project makes this possible. We expand awareness about how we, educators, and children alike, are engaged within the landscapes and waterscapes significant to us. The term landscape-lore articulates the primacy of the places we find meaningful. Our intercultural investigations took place in collaborative public schools in colonized landscapes. New Hampshire and New Zealand, known by their first inhabitants, the Aln8bak and Māori peoples respectively, as N’dakinna (the Dawnland) and Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) are landscapes that have transformed over millennia, as all places do. The deep relational knowing and caring for these landscapes and waterscapes for millennia has been greatly interrupted by colonization across the globe. Telling stories to following generations is serious storywork; they sustain culture, lands, and waters in reciprocity and deep memory. Landscape-lore and ecocultural multiliteracies, such as singing, oratory, music and dance are responsible rituals that support ancestral Indigenous Environmental Knowing and Wisdom Systems. These cultural frameworks could be vital for encouraging respectful and collaborative sustainability solutions for the entire biosphere. Centered within critical Indigenous methodologies, this relational, qualitative study endeavored to be ecoculturally responsive, respectful, and culturally sustaining. Creating experiential digital landscape lore gave us ways to share the natural world in our own voices. We were situated within a shared sense of holistic belonging in ecocultural places and communities. Exchanging our independent excursions in local land-/ waterscapes by crossing virtual biogeographical borders increased exposure to diverse worldviews and places. As a transdisciplinary process, such a learning experience fosters new emotional connections and critical human-nature systems thinking. Our study incorporates children’s landscape-lore in an ethical and respectful manner. Our main research questions were: 1. How are children engaged with(in) the natural world as described in their digital landscape-lore? 2. What culturally responsive background knowledges are vital for educators preparing to facilitate such a learning project both locally and globally? 3. How might a digital landscape-lore project support goals for connecting children and communities in relational reciprocity within and across diverse landscapes, worldviews, and times? How might landscape-lore create personal relevance, curiosity, and learning? Findings demonstrate that co-researching children each have experiential environmental knowledge that informs their relationships within their ecocultural locations and landscape-lore. Their embodied movements and experiences in nature are also significant. Children’s landscape-lore describe social participation in exploratory adventures among friends, family, beyond-human kin. Interactions with biophysical entities within land- and waterscapes hold diverse worldview meanings for children. Children demonstrated that they are savvy, digital citizens. They educated teachers and classmates about places meaningful to them. Significantly, most landscape-lore, in both N’dakinna/New Hampshire and Aotearoa New Zealand, included social moments with friends and family, and described local animals. This contrasts with many studies demonstrating a preference for distant charismatic wildlife. Children’s experiential landscape lore stories described the local biodiversity in their home environments. Our collaborative experiential landscape-lore supported innovative tech skills and critical multiliteracies directly relevant to the interests and ecocultural lives of learners of all ages

Metaphor and Intersubjectivity: The Use of Metaphor Within A Metaphor

Psychotherapists experience encounters in psychotherapy that present the opportunity for metaphor and imagery to be utilized as methods of intervention that enhance attunement in the therapeutic dyad. Working within imagery, tropes, and metaphor may facilitate experiential processing and integration of information. Metaphor has been used across cultures for many years to describe abstract concepts and to apply deeper meaning to the confines of logical thought. This paper discusses the literature on metaphor as an object of shared language, enhancing the space which minds share in the therapeutic dyad, and posits that metaphor has the ability to enhance intrapsychic levels of processing toward creating neurobiological and cognitive change. I will conduct a comparative analysis of the literature proposed here, resulting in a synthesis of various theories (including cognitive, interpersonal neurobiology, and psychoanalytic) on the use of metaphor and its connection to the intersubjective space. There is a focus on psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, and neurocognitive theories as they apply to metaphor, imagery, and intersubjectivity

Attachment Styles and the Impact of Extradyadic Behaviors in Polyamorous Relationships

This study examines the emotional experience of extradyadic behavior (EDB) in polyamorous relationships through an attachment lens. Estimated prevalence rates suggest that one in nine people in the United States have engaged in polyamory at some point in their life (Moors et al., 2021). Attachment theory addresses with anxiety and separation in relationships, feelings likely aroused by extradyadic behavior, yet it has been minimally applied to this population (Moors et al., 2015, 2019). The current study utilized a phenomenological approach where eight participants were interviewed, examining the emotional experience of EDB in polyamorous relationships through an attachment lens. The study assessed each person’s adult attachment styles, by administering an Experiences in Close Relationships-Short Form (ECR-S) measure, and conducting a semi-structed interview of the participants’ experiences of EDB. The results suggested that those with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style expressed more avoidance when discussing their romantic relationships compared to other attachment styles. Additionally, individuals with fearful-avoidant attachment styles may have a decreased tolerance for ambivalence as compared to other attachment styles. The results also suggest that individuals in polyamorous relationships have increased capacity for increased open communication, tolerating ambivalence within relationships, and for developing a differentiated sense of self. Finally, results suggested there is a large role of society and internalized monogamous views that influence individuals’ experiences of polyamory. This research could be a reference for future research with more participants, and further inform clinical work with polyamorous clients