Becoming a pilgrim: the lived experience of men who become therapists following a former career

Changing career can be a meaningful experience: it challenges our sense of identity, allows us to discover new skills and presents opportunities for novel experiences, excitement, and growth. It can also be a daunting and costly step into a way of being without the safety net of the familiar to rely on. Less than 25% of UKCP psychotherapists and 16% of BACP counsellors are male. Those who qualify have often changed career and embarked on several years of training which may even result in lower paid work than their former career. What is it that motivates these men and what is their experience like? This project seeks to explore the lived experience of becoming a therapist following a former career for seven men over 30 years of age. It applies van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological approach and explicates three themes: “Fermenting Discontent”, “Pilgrimage as Project” and “The Ambivalent Allure of Acceptance”. It sees the transition as meaningful, paradoxical and complex, re-shaping their relational world and sense of identity. It also reveals the difficulties of being a minority whilst expressing otherness against a tide of otherwise homogeneous points of view with implications for the therapy profession and the society it supports

Outcomes of conservatively managed coracoid fractures in wild birds in the United Kingdom

Coracoid fractures are a frequent presentation in wild birds, commonly due to collisions with motor vehicles, windows, or other obstacles such as pylons. Despite this, there are few literature reports of outcomes, and those published consist of small numbers of animals, with conflicting results when comparing conservative management with surgical intervention. Outcomes of 232 adult wild birds in the United Kingdom (UK), surviving more than 48 hours after admission, with only closed unilateral coracoid fractures confirmed on radiography were retrospectively analysed. There was a high success rate for conservative management, with 75% (95% confidence interval of 69-80%, n=174/232) of all birds successfully released back to the wild. The proportion of raptors successfully returned to the wild was even higher at 97% (95% CI 85-99%, n=34/35). A statistically significant difference of 26% (95% CI of 18-34%, Fishers exact test p<0.001, Z=6.08) was demonstrated, when comparing the raptor outcomes (97% success, n=34/35) to the non-raptor outcomes (71%, n=140/198). The median time in captive care until released back to the wild was 30 days (95% CI 27-33 days). Conservative management of coracoid fractures in wild birds in the UK, and in particular in raptors, appears to result in good outcomes. The approach is low cost and non-invasive, in contrast to surgery, and is recommended as the first line approach of choice in these cases

International Service Learning: Decolonizing Possibilities?

International Service Learning (ISL) programs are now ubiquitous, and the concept seems immutable: well-meaning young people from the North visiting "host" communities in the South in order to provide "service" and "to learn."  The adulatory literature is replete with the purported benefits of these programs, both to those participating from the North, and to the communities in the South. By comparison, more critical follow-up of participants from the North suggest otherwise – that they serve mainly to reinforce values of charity for the "other" and do little to aid in understanding the reasons for the unequal relations of "underdevelopment."  Similarly, a number of more recent studies have raised questions about the impact of these programs on communities in the South, and the extent to which they may serve to (re)instill neo-colonial economic and/or cultural relations.This paper presents and discusses findings from a multi-year study in a number of rural communities in Nicaragua which have hosted ISL programs, undertaken with the express purpose of exploring the modes and effects of the interactions between the visitors and the community residents. Through field observation, interviews and focus groups, a complex picture emerges of community engagement with, and reaction to, these Northern visitors, and the impact they effect on their Southern hosts. Of particular interest, we examine the possibilities these programs may have for interrupting traditional knowledge-power relations and understandings on both sides

ISL Programs and Neo-Colonialism: The Response of One Nicaraguan Village

Over the past five years, through interviews and focus groups, the authors have been exploring the impact of international service learning (ISL) programs on host villages and villagers in the south. While most communities express ongoing interest, this paper focuses on one rural Nicaraguan village that decided to end their long-standing involvement in ISL, citing the North’s persistent lack of sensitivity to the interests and needs of their community. Drawing on Basso (1996) and Gruenwald (2003), we explore the concept of place-making - drawing the individual into a collective story and focusing on discovering social meaning in and though the places they inhabit. We argue that the ISL has the potential to challenge and transform both the visitors and the host community members, but for that to happen the host community must exercise agency with respect to defining the behavioural and learning expectations of their visitors