Narrative on a doctoral narrative : reflections on postgraduate study and pedagogy

This paper explores the stages of one student’s intellectual journey through a Doctor of Philosophy program of study in an Australian university. It outlines the theoretical and methodological insights made as she came to understand that data was discourse, entailing a politics and position of power that ran contrary to the aims of the study that the student was undertaking in and on her own community. The article is a reflective narrative produced from the experience of having to come to terms with some of the personal and professional tensions and contradictions that postgraduate study can, and maybe should, engender if it is to be any of real value.

Queer cops in Queensland : exploring LGBT narrative histories in the Queensland Police Service

This chapter reports on a narrative project recording the experiences of LGBT former and current police officers in the Queensland Police Service (QPS), Australia. It begins by examining the historical and research contexts of LGBT police officers, followed by a discussion of the methodology employed for the project. The chapter then examines and analyzes key themes emerging from the data about coming out, macho police culture, and the double life syndrome often experienced by LGBT police officers. Finally, it suggests that further research might uncover a more widespread application of these findings.

Narrative therapy for adults with major depressive disorder: Improved symptom and interpersonal outcomes

Abstract This study investigated depressive symptom and interpersonal relatedness outcomes from eight sessions of manualized narrative therapy for 47 adults with major depressive disorder. Post-therapy, depressive symptom improvement (d=1.36) and proportions of clients achieving reliable improvement (74%), movement to the functional population (61%), and clinically significant improvement (53%) were comparable to benchmark research outcomes. Post-therapy interpersonal relatedness improvement (d=.62) was less substantial than for symptoms. Three-month follow-up found maintenance of symptom, but not interpersonal gains. Benchmarking and clinical significance analyses mitigated repeated measure design limitations, providing empirical evidence to support narrative therapy for adults with major depressive disorder. RÉSUMÉ Cette étude a investigué les symptômes dépressifs et les relations interpersonnels d'une thérapie narrative en huit séances chez 47 adultes souffrant d'un trouble dépressif majeur. Après la thérapie, l'amélioration des symptômes dépressifs (d=1.36) et la proportion de clients atteignant un changement significatif (74%), le mouvement vers la population fonctionnelle (61%), enfin l'amélioration clinique significative (53%) étaient comparables aux performances des études de résultats. L'amélioration des relations interpersonnelles (d=0.62) était inférieure à l'amélioration symptomatique. Le suivi à trois mois montrait un maintien des gains symptomatiques mais pas pour les relations interpersonnelles. L’évaluation des performances et les analyses de significativité clinique modèrent les limitations du plan de recherche à mesures répétées et apportent une preuve empirique qui étaie l'efficacité des thérapies narratives pour des adultes avec un trouble dépressif majeur. Este estudo investigou sintomas depressivos e resultados interpessoais relacionados em oito sessões de terapia narrativa manualizada para 47 adultos com perturbação depressiva major. No pós terapia, melhoria de sintomas depressivos (d=1,36) e proporção de clientes que alcançam melhoria válida (74%), movimento para a população funcional (61%) e melhoria clinicamente significativa (53%) foram comparáveis com os resultados da investigação reportados. As melhorias pós terapia nos resultados interpessoais relacionados (d=.62) foi menos substancial do que para os sintomas. Aos três meses de seguimento houve a manutenção dos sintomas mas não dos ganhos interpessoais. As análises de benchemarking e de melhoria clinicamente significativas atenuam as limitações de um design de medidas repetidas, fornecendo evidência empírica para a terapia narrativa para adultos com perturbação depressiva major. Questo lavoro ha valutato i sintomi depressivi e gli outcome nella capacità di relazionarsi a livello interpersonale in 8 sedute di psicoterapia narrativa manualizzata in un gruppo di 47 adulti con depressione maggiore. I risultati ottenuti relativamente a: post terapy, miglioramento dei sintomi depressivi (d_1.36), proporzione di pazienti che hanno raggiunto un miglioramento affidabile e consistente (74%), movimento verso il funzionamento atteso nella popolazione (61%) e miglioramento clinicamente significativo (53%) sono paragonabili ai valori di riferimento della ricerca sull'outcome. I miglioramento della capacità di relazionarsi valutata alla fine del trattamento (d_.62) si è rivelata meno sostanziale rispetto ai sintomi. Un follow-up dopo 3 mesi ha dimostrato che il miglioramento sintomatologico è stato mantenuto, ma non quello degli obiettivi interpersonali. Valori di riferimento e analisi della significatività clinica hanno fatto fronte ai limiti del disegno a misure ripetute, offrendo prove empiriche sulla rilevanza della terapia narrativa in pazienti adulti con depressione maggiore

Adventure as the metaphoric basis for constructing a narrative to defuse a collective critical incident

This article describes an exercise in collective narrative practice, built around the metaphor of adventure. This metaphor helped to scaffold the development of stories of personal agency for a group of Australian primary school children whose teachers were afraid they might be traumatised by events which occurred during a school excursion. During the excursion, the group of 110 Year 5 and 6 school children had their accommodation broken into on two separate occasions and various belongings stolen. The very brief period made available for ‘debriefing’ was used to introduce the metaphor of adventure, and open up space for the children to begin constructing a story in which they were ‘powerful’, as an alternative to the story of powerlessness and victimhood in which they were initially caught up.

Shanghai : images of modernity

This chapter profiles China's biggest city and economic powerhouse, Shanghai. The authors examine the city’s use of culture to position itself as a global city and how a particular narrative of the city has informed western commentators and Shanghai policy makers. They also analyze the development of an arts and cultural infrastructure and the parallel separation of art and entertainment, with contemporary art as an unexpected challenge, but one the city successfully negotiated. They looks at the marketisation of culture and the context in which this takes place, tracing the connections between market reforms in culture and those in the wider economy. The authors are convinced that the half-formed or distorted use of western concepts like creative industries or creative clusters, rather than indicating a duplicity or an incomplete modernity actually highlight some of the complicities of canonical cultural policy.

Dietary modification for women after breast cancer treatment : a narrative review

Diet is thought to account for about 25% of cancers in developed countries. It is well documented that the risks associated with both the breast cancer itself and its treatments are important for women previously treated for breast cancer. Women are at risk of recurrence of the primary disease and prone to develop treatment-induced co-morbidities, some of which are thought to be modified by diet. With a view to making dietary recommendations for the breast cancer patients we encounter in our clinical nursing research, we mined the literature to scope the most current robust evidence concerning the role of the diet in protecting women against the recurrence of breast cancer and its potential to ameliorate some of the longer-term morbidities associated with the disease. We found that the evidence about the role of the diet in breast cancer recurrence is largely inconclusive. However, drawing on international guidelines enabled us to make three definitive recommendations. Women at risk of breast cancer recurrence, or who experience co-morbidities as a result of treatment, should limit their exposure to alcohol, moderate their nutritional intake so it does not contribute to postmenopausal weight gain, and should adhere to a balanced diet. Nursing education planned for breast cancer patients about dietary issues should ideally be individually tailored, based on a good understanding of the international recommendations and the evidence underpinning them

Mind games : applying White’s principles of narrative therapy to the creation of a cabaret about depression and bipolar disorder

This PhD represents my attempt to make sense of my personal experiences of depression through the form of cabaret. I first experienced depression in 2006. Previously, I had considered myself to be a happy and optimistic person. I found the experience of depression to be a shock: both in the experience itself, and also in the way it effected my own self image. These personal experiences, together with my professional history as a songwriter and cabaret performer, have been the motivating force behind the research project. This study has explored the question: What are the implications of applying principles of Michael White’s narrative therapy to the creation of a cabaret performance about depression and bipolar disorder? There is a 50 percent weighting on the creative work, the cabaret performance Mind Games, and a 50 percent weighting on the written exegesis. This research has focussed on the illustration of therapeutic principles in order to play games of truth within a cabaret performance. The research project investigates ways of telling my own story in relation to others’ stories through three re-authoring principles articulated in Michael White’s narrative therapy: externalisation, an autonomous ethic of living and rich descriptions. The personal stories presented in the cabaret were drawn from my own experiences and from interviews with individuals with depression or bipolar disorder. The cabaret focussed on the illustration of therapeutic principles, and was not focussed on therapeutic ends for myself or the interviewees. The research question has been approached through a methodology combining autoethnographic, practice-led and action research. Auto ethnographic research is characterised by close investigation of assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs. The combination of autoethnographic, practice-led, action research has allowed me to bring together personal experiences of mental illness, research into therapeutic techniques, social attitudes and public discourses about mental illness and forms of contemporary cabaret to facilitate the creation of a one-woman cabaret performance. The exegesis begins with a discussion of games of truth as informed by Michel Foucault and Michael White and self-stigma as informed by Michael White and Erving Goffman. These concepts form the basis for a discussion of my own personal experiences. White’s narrative therapy is focused on individuals re-authoring their stories, or telling their stories in different ways. White’s principles are influenced by Foucault’s notions of truth and power. Foucault’s term games of truth has been used to describe the effect of a ‘truth in flux’ that occurs through White’s re-authoring process. This study argues that cabaret is an appropriate form to represent this therapeutic process because it favours heightened performativity over realism, and showcases its ‘constructedness’ and artificiality. Thus cabaret is well suited to playing games of truth. A contextual review compares two major cabaret trends, personal cabaret and provocative cabaret, in reference to the performer’s relationship with the audience in terms of distance and intimacy. The study draws a parallel between principles of distance and intimacy in Michael White’s narrative therapy and relates these to performative terms of distance and intimacy. The creative component of this study, the cabaret Mind Games, used principles of narrative therapy to present the character ‘Jo’ playing games of truth through: externalising an aspect of her personality (externalisation); exploring different life values (an autonomous ethic of living); and enacting multiple versions of her identity (rich descriptions). This constant shifting between distance and intimacy within the cabaret created the effect of a truth in ‘constant flux’, to use one of White’s terms. There are three inter-related findings in the study. The first finding is that the application of principles of White’s narrative therapy was able to successfully combine provocative and empathetic elements within the cabaret. The second finding is that the personal agenda of addressing my own self-stigma within the project limited the effective portrayal of a ‘truth in flux’ within the cabaret. The third finding presents the view that the cabaret expressed ‘Jo’ playing games of truth in order to journey towards her own "preferred identity claim" (White 2004b) through an act of "self care" (Foucault 2005). The contribution to knowledge of this research project is the application of therapeutic principles to the creation of a cabaret performance. This process has focussed on creating a self-revelatory cabaret that questions notions of a ‘fixed truth’ through combining elements of existing cabaret forms in new ways. Two major forms in contemporary cabaret, the personal cabaret and the provocative cabaret use the performer-audience relationship in distinctive ways. Through combining elements of these two cabaret forms, I have explored ways to create a provocative cabaret focussed on the act of self-revelation.

Legal education and the 'idealistic student': using Foucault to unpack the critical legal narrative

It appears that few of the students holding ‘socially idealistic’ goals upon entering law school actually maintain these upon graduation. The critical legal narrative, which explains and seeks to act upon this shift in the graduate’s ‘legal identity’, posits that these ideals are repressed through power relations that create passive receptacles into which professional ideologies can be deposited, in the interests of those advantaged by the social and legal status quo. Using the work of Michel Foucault, this paper unpacks the assumptions underpinning this narrative, particularly its arguments about ideology, power, and the subject. In doing so, it will argue this narrative provides an untenable basis for political action within legal education. By interrogating this narrative, this paper provides a new way of understanding the construction of the legal identity through legal education, and a new basis for political action within law school.

Coming to belong : a narrative analysis of international students’ experiences in an Australian university

This thesis reports on an interview study with 17 international students about their experiences of coming to belong in an Australian university. All used English as an additional language (EAL). The students’ narratives of ‘coming to belong’ are conceptualised through the theory of Bourdieu, in particular the concepts of field, capital, habitus and legitimation; and the methodological premises of critical realism’s layered ontology. The literature review argues that access to and accrual of a range of capital is critical to successful adaptation to a new educational system. This, and processes of legitimation by others in the fields, affects the senses of belonging for students of various linguistic backgrounds, of different countries of origin, studying from primary to higher education in diverse parts of the world. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and email dialogues at three points during the students’ first year of study in Australia. The analysis shows how the students’ empirical experiences were ordered in terms of narrative structure—orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and coda—and highlight the emotions generated by the sequence of events. The findings show that EAL international students sought new field positions through legitimation in multiple senses across (sub-)fields. They also show that academic, social and linguistic legitimacy granted by others produced a spectrum of belonging: in the centre, at the margin, and/or to meaningful intercultural encounters. This study makes a contribution to the growing literature around the experience of international students in higher education, and to empirical literature using Bourdieu to understand educational relations.

Using staffing ratios for workforce planning : evidence on nine allied health professions - a narrative review

Background: Modern healthcare managers are faced with pressure to deliver effective, efficient services within the context of fixed budget constraints. This requires decisions regarding the skill mix of the workforce particularly when staffing new services. One measure used to identify numbers and mix of staff in healthcare settings is workforce ratio. The aim of this study was to identify workforce ratios in nine allied health professions and to identify whether these measures are useful for planning allied health workforce requirements. Method: A systematic literature search using relevant MeSH headings of business, medical and allied health databases and relevant grey literature for the period 2000-2008 was undertaken. Results: Twelve articles were identified which described the use of workforce ratios in allied health services. Only one of these was a staffing ratio linked to clinical outcomes. The most comprehensive measures were identified in rehabilitation medicine. Conclusions: The evidence for use of staffing ratios for allied health practitioners is scarce and lags behind the fields of nursing and medicine.

Narrative : family trauma or challenge and resilience in the Galapagos Archipelago

The chapter is a "here and now" narration in the first person as witnessed and experienced by the author during field work in the Galapagos Islands in 1976-79. The story begins on the most remote volcanic island of Fernandina where the breeding biology of Flightless cormorants was being studied. A small selection of the many potentially life threatening situations and challenges is described including stories related to the birth of their son.

Asian-Australian Children’s Literature and Publishing (AACLAP)

Led by Queensland University of Technology, the Asian-Australian Children’s Literature and Publishing (AACLAP)research project investigates and records details of Australian children’s literature that is set in Asia and/or that represents Asian-Australian cultures and experiences and literature that is published in selected Asian languages. This includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Bay of Bengal. The AACLAP dataset is a comprehensive collection of agent and work records related to ’Asia’, including, but not limited to, autobiography, fiction, criticism, poetry, drama, short stories, and picture books, published during a forty-year period from 1970 to 2010. The dataset provide valuable primary and secondary sources that are important for developing literature-focused educational programs in line with the national government’s push for Asia Literacy. AACLAP is a subset of AustLit, the virtual research environment and information resource for Australian literary, print, and narrative culture scholars, students, and the public.

Metacognitive narrative psychotherapy for people diagnosed with schizophrenia : an outline of a principle-based treatment manual

Schizophrenia is often characterised by diminished self-experience. This article describes the development and principles of a manual for a psychotherapeutic treatment model that aims to enhance self-experience in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy draws upon dialogical theory of self and the work of Lysaker and colleagues, in conjunction with narrative principles of therapy as operationalised by Vromans. To date, no manual for a metacognitive narrative approach to the treatment of schizophrenia exists. After a brief description of narrative understandings of schizophrenia, the development of the manual is described. Five general phases of treatment are outlined: (1) developing a therapeutic relationship; (2) eliciting narratives; (3) enhancing metacognitive capacity; (4) enriching narratives, and; (5) living enriched narratives. Proscribed practices are also described. Examples of therapeutic interventions and dialogue are provided to further explain the application of interventions in-session. The manual has been piloted in a study investigating the effectiveness of Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy in the treatment of people diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Handover : the collective narrative of nursing practice

This paper examines the practice of handover in a large metropolitan hospital. It shows that the handover is a significant site at which to examine how tensions and imperatives derived from the traditional institutional position and role of the nurse are played out in contradiction with emergent professionalism. It identifies handover dimensions and focuses discussion on how the collective narrative of the handover serves to construct patient identities as well as ensure solidarity and cohesion among nurses.