Conference Agenda

This paper focuses on the important issue of the social nature of self and the ways the different aspects of the self are being internalized through external dialogues. It presents a study that systematically explores the development of the clients’ voices during group psychotherapy from a narrative and dialogical perspective. Thematic narrative analysis was used to study 20 two-hour group therapy sessions of a systemic informed approach that was completed over two years. The analysis involved mapping of the voices of each group member, their categorization as compassionate and/or reflexive and a sequential depiction of the group voices through timelines. The analysis reveals the ways in which voices, especially compassionate voices, that appear in the dialogue between clients and therapists and are rehearsed in the context of the group are gradually internalized by the clients, becoming clients’ voices, changing thus the dominance of voices of each client’s voice repertoire. This study empirically depicts the process of internalization of voices, providing support to the dialogical self theory and the social nature of the self.

Background: Evidence suggests that Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) benefits organisations. However, the impact on recipients and the companies that adopt MHFA remains unclear.

Study Aim: To explore the experiences of recipients and employees in UK-based companies where MHFA was introduced to promote help-seeking behaviours. Also its impact on organisational culture and work relationships.

Methods

Design: A reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify themes from experiences shared about MHFA, including its strengths and challenges.

Sample: Twenty-four participants from an ongoing clustered randomised controlled trial purposely selected were interviewed.

Results

Three themes were identified from the experiences of participants; “ambiguity concerning the purpose of MHFA”, “reluctance to engage due to ambivalent feelings about MHFA support”, and “hierarchical influence and risk of disclosure”. Three themes were identified regarding the impact of MHFA on organisational culture and work relationships: “incorporating mental health/well-being chats in organisational structures and processes”, “communication and openness about mental health”, and “fostering empathetic relationships”.

Conclusion

There is uncertainty about the relevance of MHFA in a workplace context, with some factors contributing to this understanding. However, the intervention contributes positively to the organisational culture and empathetic relationships among colleagues.

Clinical experience shows that questionnaires can be burdensome and time-consuming in work with seriously ill patients. Drawings may offer promising alternatives and additional values. We will present clinical and research experiences with tools developed by us. 1. Draw-a-Person and Transplanted Kidney Task A drawing task of the body and the new organ after transplantation. The characteristics of the drawings correlate with anxiety, depression, and medical parameters, by which we can detect and support the psychosomatic integration of the new organ. 2. PRISM-D - The drawing version of the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure. After validating the tool with 500 chronic patients, we tested it with 150 cancer patients, and found it very well applicable both for exploring illness representations and to develop coping strategies. 3. Emotional Graph of Illness Trajectory, a drawing technique combined with the analysis of illness stories based on Frank’s categories of restitution, chaos, and quest narratives. According to our results with 140 patients in surgery, there were significant differences in the three narrative and graphic groups in disease-related concerns, treatment control and emotional representation. All the three tools can be used throughout the healing process, both for testing and interventions in clinical health psychology.

Many qualitative articles have been investigating the experience of international students, however, they might either “eternally reinventing the wheel”, or be “pieces of jigsaw” as they do not let us see a complex and whole picture of an experience.
Synthesizing qualitative research with various epistemological approaches calls for many interpretations and translations of data to find those themes where they can be compared. To avoid the difficulties of comparing “apples to oranges” we analyzed articles carried out by using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis studies and investigating international student experience.
In our research, we discuss the epistemological possibility of such synthesis of IPA articles and we also present a step-by-step approach of interpretive synthesis of studies using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
We not only compared existing themes and interpretations of authors but also decomposed them and made critical re-interpretations and triangulation of participants' quotations, and researchers' interpretation if it was needed because of the lack of clarity, lack of precision or incongruent interpretations of quotations
IPA articles are sufficient for reinterpretations as quotations of interviewees guarantee the transparency of interpretations and the processthe of knowledge making.