The Use of Text Messaging for Peer Support Among Counselling Psychology Graduate Students

The journey through graduate school to become a counselling psychologist is inherently challenging. Consequently, many students face emotional stress. Peers offer a unique source of support through a shared understanding of their experience. This pilot study used focused ethnography to understand how counselling psychology graduate students engage in emotional support with a peer through the use of text messaging within a naturalistic context. A three-member peer support group, comprising the researchers, served as the convenience sample. In this manner, the researchers both took part in and analyzed the experience of text messaging based peer support. Transcripts of emotional peer support interactions were obtained through sampling the participant-observers’ naturally occurring text message conversations. Elements of Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis (TA) and Elo and Kyngäs’ content analysis (CA) were used to categorize the raw data. The main findings indicate peer support bilaterally encompasses action, connection, disclosure, hearing, initiation, shared happiness, and solidarity. Within a support conversation, supporters predominantly used connection statements, whereas supportees mainly utilized emotional disclosure. These preliminary findings suggest that text messaging offers an immediate, intimate, and readily available platform through which peers can actively create a supportive dialogue

The Experience of HELLP Syndrome in Pregnancy and its Influence on Motherhood: An Autoethnographic Inquiry

This thesis involved an autoethnographic inquiry into the lived experience of HELLP syndrome; a severe, life-threatening hypertensive complication in pregnancy, and on motherhood. I aimed to explore how mothers make sense of their experience as to understand how HELLP syndrome shapes this time in a woman’s life. This inquiry was informed by the relevant literature and stories of eight women, including my own, who have experienced this medical disorder of pregnancy. Using the principles of evocative autoethnography outlined by Ellis and Bochner (2016) and through a social constructionist framework, the final research product is in the form of a personal narrative, or story, about my own lived experience, which serves a backdrop for revealing the influence HELLP syndrome has on motherhood. The goals of my study were multifold: (1) to bring voice to mothers affected by HELLP syndrome, (2) to inform the field of medicine on the psychosocial aspects of HELLP syndrome, and (3) to inform the field of counselling psychology on how sociocultural factors can contribute to psychological distress among HELLP syndrome survivors. Implications and directions for future research are provided