Brief Psychotherapy for Management of Primary Headaches: a Clinical Grounded Approach

This research explores the potentialities of psychotherapy for the management of chronic pain. The model used is brief therapy of systemic orientation and the chronic pain managed is primary headaches (namely, migraines and tension-type headaches). In order to produce clinically relevant material, this research is carried out within an alternative research paradigm. The raw data are the audio-recordings of two cases: one with a man suffering from migraines; the other with a woman suffering from chronic tension-type headaches (aggravated by migraine episodes). These were selected from a pool of cases because they illustrate the phenomena under study and both completed a follow-up which confirmed an acceptable headache management outcome. The recordings were transcribed in order to be studied using discourse analysis of social constructionist orientation (DA hereafter). The research questions explored are: How were the headache problems, the therapeutic aims and the resources for managing them constructed during therapy? What did the participants do with these constructions? How was this particular type of talk interaction helpful in changing the way these two people managed their primary headaches? DA reveals that: (1) the headache problems are entangled in many vicious cycles, Catch-22 situations and even double-binds, and that these patterns have the tendency to perpetuate the problems; (2) the meaning of the headaches vary from one patient to the other, being greatly influenced by their personal experiences, family histories and interaction with health professionals; (3) these meanings influence the co-construction of the therapeutic aims, with management (rather than a cure) emerging as a more achievable goal, with additional auxiliary aims also becoming very important; (4) specific interventions for managing the headaches and for achieving the auxiliary aims lead to concrete changes; (5) these changes are sometimes generalized for other situations, and therapy is seen as a useful resource. Thus, this study shows some of the potentialities of brief therapy of systemic orientation to manage primary headaches, producing concrete suggestions that can be applied in clinical work

Latine family math engagement: a phenomenological study of co-design approaches

Mathematics achievement at school entry is the strongest predictor for eighth-grade performance, regardless of race, gender, or family socioeconomic status. Yet, California Latine children continue to lack in math proficiency, struggling with concepts such as knowledge of numbers, counting, and spatial and pattern skills development. Existing literature has demonstrated that Family Engagement support children’s development. However, Latine parents often feel less comfortable doing math themselves and in participating in their children\u27s math learning. This interpretive phenomenology research study was designed to uncover participants’ cultural repertoires and learning experiences to explore how Latine families perceived and engaged in co-design workshops to develop a mathematics activity for their 3-5 years old children. This study collected data from (a) semi-structured interviews and (b) co-design workshops (including co-design workshop recordings, transcriptions, photos and screenshots). Thematic analysis identified the key findings that emerged from the semi-structured interviews are (a) traditional education virtues, (b) familismo, (c) role of language, (d) ecological environment, (e) views on knowledge, (f) interest-driven learning, (g) identity formation related to (math) learning. Further, building upon existing frameworks, this study’s results and analysis suggest that through co-design approaches, Latina mothers engaged in (h) teamwork and collaboration, (i) sense-making, (j) intrapersonal openness, and (k) conscientiousness in the co-design and co-construction of a mathematics activity for their children. In centering Latina mothers as designers and users of their own mathematics learning experience, it positioned them as experts in their own and their children’s learning and allowed for the co-design and co-creation of a meaningful learning math experience. Co-design approaches may be helpful to engage marginalized groups, such as the Latina mothers in this study, to achieve successful family engagement outcomes. Co-design approaches herald a different way of engaging Latine families as an alternative to standard family engagement interventions

Brief psychotherapy for management of primary headaches : a clinical grounded approach

This research explores the potentialities of psychotherapy for the management of chronic pain. The model used is brief therapy of systemic orientation and the chronic pain managed is primary headaches (namely, migraines and tension-type headaches). In order to produce clinically relevant material, this research is carried out within an alternative research paradigm. The raw data are the audio-recordings of two cases: one with a man suffering from migraines; the other with a woman suffering from chronic tension-type headaches (aggravated by migraine episodes). These were selected from a pool of cases because they illustrate the phenomena under study and both completed a follow-up which confirmed an acceptable headache management outcome. The recordings were transcribed in order to be studied using discourse analysis of social constructionist orientation (DA hereafter). The research questions explored are: How were the headache problems, the therapeutic aims and the resources for managing them constructed during therapy? What did the participants do with these constructions? How was this particular type of talk interaction helpful in changing the way these two people managed their primary headaches? DA reveals that: (1) the headache problems are entangled in many vicious cycles, Catch-22 situations and even double-binds, and that these patterns have the tendency to perpetuate the problems; (2) the meaning of the headaches vary from one patient to the other, being greatly influenced by their personal experiences, family histories and interaction with health professionals; (3) these meanings influence the co-construction of the therapeutic aims, with management (rather than a cure) emerging as a more achievable goal, with additional auxiliary aims also becoming very important; (4) specific interventions for managing the headaches and for achieving the auxiliary aims lead to concrete changes; (5) these changes are sometimes generalized for other situations, and therapy is seen as a useful resource. Thus, this study shows some of the potentialities of brief therapy of systemic orientation to manage primary headaches, producing concrete suggestions that can be applied in clinical work.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Cultural Transposition: Exploring Meanings of and Strategies for Cross-Cultural Transfer of Organizational Practices

The research objective is to study the phenomenon of transferring organizational practices which are conceptualized in one culture to another different culture. The purpose of the study is (1) to understand how cultural values and beliefs are manifested in behavior; (2) to explore how the Western organizational practices are interpreted and assimilated into an organization in an Eastern culture; and (3) to explore strategies for the fit between local cultural orientations and imported organizational practices. A qualitative, interpretive, and reflexive research methodology was developed to conduct this study. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was designed to develop an indigenous perspective of the Chinese culture and behavior and to investigate the cultural interplays in the context of transferring organizational practices from the Western culture to the Chinese culture. This phase was mainly conducted in a large industrial organization in China, complemented by limited data collected from several other organizations. Three major social groups--the government, the management, and the employees--all of which have a major stake in the case organization were investigated by indepth interviews. This was to identify how each of them constructed their own realities, and how their realities were shared and in conflict with each other in the organizational context. Limited observation and document analysis were used to complement the interview findings. Cases where imported organizational practices were integrated with the Chinese culture were examined. The second phase of the study was conducted in the USA. Cross-cultural informants--those Chinese who had both work experiences in the People\u27s Republic of China (the PRC) and the USA and had a cross-cultural perspective were interviewed. This was designed to facilitate an understanding of the Chinese culture and behavior in the context of other cultures. During the two phases of the study, a meta-research method was applied to observe the influence of the researcher upon the research process. The researcher\u27s influence on the research data was examined. A model for cross-cultural transfer of organizational practices was developed. Implications for the study of organization and culture, the construction of meanings in the context of cross-cultural transfer of organizational practices, organizational change in a cultural context, the case organization, and the development of Chinese organizational and management theories were examined. Suggestions for future research were also made

Participatory sense-making in psychotherapy

250 p.La presente tesis propone un enfoque enactivo de la psiquiatría y la psicoterapia que va más allá de una concepción puramente ¿mentalista¿ de la empatía y la alianza terapéutica hacia una perspectiva de segunda persona, destacando el papel constitutivo de la interacción corporal pre-reflectiva entre terapeutas y pacientes en el proceso terapéutico. La tesis se cimienta en la teoría de la intersubjetividad entendida como participatory sense-making, que describe la coordinación de actividades intencionales y no intencionales como vehículo de la emergencia de significados compartidos en las interacciones interpersonales. Se presentan tres trabajos aplicando el marco enactivo a la investigación en psicoterapia: (1) un comentario sobre estudios correlacionales de coordinación no verbal y resultado psicoterapéutico, donde se sugieren nuevas hipótesis de trabajo e interpretaciones de datos empíricos, (2) un análisis interpretativo-fenomenológico de los mecanismos intercorporales pre-reflectivos implicados en la transición de la terapia presencial al formato online, y (3) un análisis y clasificación fenomenológico-enactivo de las intervenciones corporales en los procesos terapéuticos. Estos trabajos demuestran que el marco enactivo promueve una forma particular de investigar psicoterapia

Creative high school dropouts\u27 experiences of learning : a phenomenological study

This study examined descriptions of learning experiences and the meaning that learning has for 11 creative high school dropouts who had just completed a one-on-one computer assisted multi-media learning experience. For these individuals learning is an active experience full of challenge and rich complexity which is grounded in resilient self reliance. Personal experience is regarded as the most desired and effective way of learning by these individuals.The 11 creative high school dropouts were selected from a population of120 high school dropouts who were enrolled in GED or similar classes at five research sites in 3 East Tennessee counties. For selection purposes assessments of creativity and perceptual modality learning style were administered to ail 120 high school dropouts, and from these, 11 were chosen for participation in a computer assisted multi-media learning experience and in depth,phenomenological interviews based on 3 criteria. The 3 criteria were that the individual had: (a) Scored at the 84th National Percentile or above on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Figural Form A., (b) exhibited strengths in perceptual modality learning styles not rewarded in traditional school settings,based on scores obtained from the Multi-Modal Paired Associates LearningTest - Revised, and (c) volunteered to be interviewed.The rich interview protocols were analyzed for meaning units and emergent themes by the researcher and a phenomenological research group.Themes are presented in three categories using the actual wording of the 11co-participants. Categories are: (a) “How I learn”, (b) “Why I learn”, and(c). “What learning is to me”.The “How I learn” category includes descriptions of conditions and processes present during optimal learning; desired personal, social, and environmental resources; and feelings during learning. The “Why I learn”category describes the creative individual’s motivation for learning and includes learning in order to understand yourself and your place in the world; todo, make, or survive; and to care for, or understand, others. “What learning is to me” describes the meaning that learning has for these co-participants and was described succinctly by one co-participant, “ Learning is making the best of use of my instincts and experiences to understand myself and others, and to succeed in the world.

Perspectives on an Arts Magnet School : the Voices of Elementary School Children

Since the beginning of public school as a social institution early in the nineteenth century, the voices of children have been missing from the discussion about school. From the progressive era to the current standards based movement, structures of education have been premised on the ideas of what adults think are the best ways for children to learn. But educators and other adults are recognizing the importance of student perspectives by providing children opportunities to participate in critical reflection about school. By including children of all ages in this discussion, educators, policy makers and researchers may begin to examine their own assumptions about student learning, subject matter and educational policy. A phenomenological approach was used to describe the lived school experiences of five 6th grade children attending an arts magnet school in the Pacific Northwest. Phenomenology focuses on the individual lived experiences of the study participants and how their understanding of those experiences shape the phenomena under study. The research question was this: How do children perceive and describe their experiences of school? Data were collected through three in-depth interviews of each participant. An iterative process of questioning, information giving, analysis and verification was characteristic of the entire study. Through a process of phenomenological reduction, 5 themes emerged from the data: (a) Feelings, (b) Learning, (c) Relationships, (d) Time, (e) Orderliness. Limitations of the study included the small sample size and the possibility of researcher influence on participant responses because of perceived adult/child power differentials

Affect[ing] the Theory-Practice Gap in Social Justice Teacher Education: Exploring Student Teachers’ “Stuck Moments”

Set within a discursive field of humanist and neoliberal thought, this post-qualitative study attended to student teachers’ “stuck moments” in a university-based, social justice-oriented teacher education program (SJTE). It sought to problematize the familiar tendency of ascribing student teachers’ stuck moments as symptomatic of the theory-practice gap, an argument frequently lobbied by policy makers to dismantle university-based teacher education in favor of alternative (read: more lucrative) programs. Challenging the representational logic that undergirds prevailing conceptualizations of stuckness and the theory-practice gap obsession in teacher education, this study conceptualized stuck moments as a fluid, moving assemblage of bodies (human and nonhuman), and discursive, affective, and material forces. Informed by posthumanist theories of affect, this case study of six preservice teachers enrolled in an SJTE program used a rhizomatic mapping process that entailed assembling a series of wonder cabinets to map the discursive, affective, and material forces that shape student teachers’ stuck moment(s) and explore what these stuck moments do to student teachers. Data sources included field notes and jottings, individual and group conversations, and the creation of wonder cabinets of stuckness. The findings of this study suggest that the materiality of field placement sites (i.e., the physical and discursive), the pressure on student teachers to achieve teaching mastery, participants’ desire to have an impact on their students, and the challenges of enacting critical/justice practices, constitute the stuck moment assemblage. These constituting elements also illuminate the infiltration of learning discourses in student teachers’ stuckness. With their focus on mastery, normative teacher identity categories, measurable goals, and telos-driven progress narratives, learning discourses—while seductive for student teachers—collide with the tenuousness and uncertainty of social justice work. These discourses also generate and intensify the negative affects that animate student teachers’ stuck moments. These affects include, among others, worry, shame, and loneliness. This research foregrounds how stuckness holds the potential to simultaneously expose and oppose the conflicting discourses, affective attachments, and intensities, that student teachers encounter as they navigate through the various spaces of their SJTE program