Positive Self-identity Research Articles

Resilience Among Rural Lesbian Youth

Rural lesbian youth are encumbered with a number of obstacles in their development of a positive self-identify and self-worth. Youth may experience implied physical threats, abuse, and mental health concerns as they attempt to define themselves within a context that emphasizes the role of women as heterosexual caretakers of the community. A number of factors can serve to diminish or enhance the young rural lesbian's ability to cope with barriers and obstacles that she may face, including having a supportive family network, a larger network of friends, supportive mentors and teachers, and access to gay–straight alliances. The intent of this article is to examine the challenges that rural lesbian youth face in developing a positive self-identity including tools to enhance resilience.

Struggling with cancer and treatment: young athletes recapture body control and identity through exercise: qualitative findings from a supervised group exercise program in cancer patients of mixed gender undergoing chemotherapy

Cancer and treatment can negatively affect the body's performance and appearance. Exercise has been tested in a few studies for altered body image among middle-aged women with breast cancer. The aim of the study was to explore how young pre-cancer athletes of both genders experience disease- and treatment-related physical fitness and appearance changes while undergoing chemotherapy and participating in a 6-week group exercise intervention. A prospective, explorative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted before and at termination of the intervention. The study included 22 cancer patients (median age 28 years). The young athletes experienced a change from a high level of physical activity, body satisfaction and a positive self-identity to a low level of physical activity, body denial and a negative self-identity. In the program, the patients experienced increased physical strength and recapture of certain aspects of their former positive body perception. Deterioation of muscle functions caused by chemotherapy was particularly painful to these patients, independent of gender and age. Young physically active patients are heavily dependent on their physical capacity, body satisfaction and self-identity. This should be taken into account when designing programs to rehabilitate and encourage these patients through the often-strenuous antineoplastic treatments.

No More Mothers?

The role of motherhood was attenuated over the half of the twentieth century, by literal and metaphorical factors: Privileged women gained control over their reproduction and developed non-mothering life priorities; government and society became less nurturing in public ideals; projects of spontaneous speciation began in biology; the environment became unsustaining. In addition, feminist criticism resulted in greater individuation between the persons of mothers and their children. With these changes, the role of motherhood lacks a positive identity, culturallyand psychically. Extending a literary character, I suggest that mothers consider an attenuated internal identity, based on their unique biological relationships to their children. This would afford a more positive self-identity, as well as a pragmatic solution to demands made by present middleman roles for mothers to procure expert child enculturation care, in addition to their second shifts..

An exploratory case study of the impact of ambient biographical displays on identity in a patient with Alzheimer's disease

One of the most troubling symptoms of Alzheimer's disease is the loss of the patient's sense of identity. This loss complicates relationships, increases apathy, and generally impedes quality of life for the patient. We describe a novel in-home ambient display called Biography Theatre that cycles through music, photographs, movies, and narratives drawn from the patient's past and current life. We conducted an exploratory case study with an 84-year-old male with moderate-stage Alzheimer's disease (Mr H). The study consisted of three phases: a baseline phase, a phase wherein autobiographical materials were collected and discussed, and a phase wherein the display was deployed in the home. The patient demonstrated improvement on standardised tests of apathy and positive self-identity, but did not improve on tests of autobiographical memory, anxiety, depression, and general cognition. We also report on caregiver reactions to the intervention and how the display helped them cope with and reinterpret their loved one's condition. This work suggests that interdisciplinary work involving “off the desktop” computing technologies may be a fruitful way to provide rehabilitative benefit for individuals with Alzheimer's disease.

Image Theory, Goal Incompatibility, and Retirement Intent

Identity, as a guiding concept for work and retirement decisions, is explored in the current study. Image theory suggests that actions that "fit" with the goals of the trajectory image are fundamental for maintaining a positive and consistent self-identity (Beach, 1998; Beach & Mitchell, 1987). Incompatibility is the mechanism that evaluates whether retiring or continued work provides sufficient "fit" with the goals one hopes to achieve. In the current study, the "fit" of the trajectory image with retirement and work was measured in 238 full-time employees. Consistent with image theory predictions, individuals' perception of the incompatibility between five personal goals, within the trajectory image, and the choices of working and retiring predicted 25% of their retirement intent. Further support for goal incompatibility as a decision criterion is provided by findings showing it yielded better prediction than an alternative model based on goal facilitation, and equal prediction to an alternative model based on cost/benefit. Overall, the results are consistent with image theory and expand on continuity theory's (Atchley, 1999) concept of identity as fundamental for predicting retirement intent.

From stigma to self-assertion

This article examines the process by which the Paraiyars, one of the Dalit communities of Tamil Nadu, South India, attempt to reconstruct their identity by revalorising the symbols of pollution that defined them as low and defiled into positive symbols of their culture. It argues that conflict, confrontation and radical rupture from the dominant community were essential for the formation of a new collective consciousness. Conflictual social relations between the Paraiyars and the Vanniyars, the dominant high-caste group in the village, became a resource and impetus that made the Paraiyars conscious of their stigmatised identity and persuaded them to form a new and positive self-identity that expressed aspirations for the future even as it memorialised past suffering. This article focuses on the resignification of the parai drum and the related symbols and myths that were used by the higher castes to define the Paraiyars as polluted and segregated.

Identity construction following Traumatic Brain Injury: A case study

This construction of self-identity pre- and post-Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in a single case study is described. A life history research methodology was employed to explore the experience of a survivor of TBI, using a single case study design. The participant was a 31-year-old White South African male who sustained TBI while on duty in the army. Multiple interviews were conducted with the participant to allow in-depth exploration of his self-identity formation pre- and post-TBI. Data analysis entailed transcribing the interviews, crafting a research story (narrative analysis) and an analysis of the narrative. The results illuminated the emergence and development of a resistance identity as a product of early pre-TBI experience, the loss of self following TBI as well as the emergence of a positive self-identity. The embedded issues of communication and self-identity are explained. The participant's narrative espoused a hopeful optimism, strongly challenging the dominant disability discourse. The specific strengths and limitations, and potential value of using life histories as both a methodological and clinical tool when working with TBI survivors is described. Implications for research and clinical practice in the field of Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) is also provided.

“What is the proper word for people like you?”: The Question of Métis Identity in In Search of April Raintree

“What is the proper word for people like you?”: The Question of Métis Identity in In Search of April Raintree Sharon Smulders (bio) Beatrice mosionier (formerly Culleton) has said that while writing her landmark novel, In Search of April Raintree (1983), she conceived the issue of identity as “a Metis problem, or a problem for ... native people being brought up in white foster homes” (Interview with Garrod 85). As the manager of Pemmican Publications, she linked the question of indigenous identity to matters of self-representation by emphasizing the need to provide students with “access to adequate and accurate knowledge of the Indian, Inuit and Metis people” through books that “do justice to the Native people and ... give them a voice” (“Images” 51) Yet, according to Janice Acoose, Mosionier’s own work in In Search of April Raintree fails to “illustrate the Métis cultural identity” and, as a result, features a “dis-eased narrative voice” (228, 230). Consequently, insofar as the novel equates being Métis with being a culturally deprived survivor of foster care, it may “leave readers with mis-informed notions about the Métis” (Acoose 235). A further complication rests, however, in the lack of contemporary consensus on the constituents of Métis identity. By focusing on the question of identity, therefore, Mosionier not only addresses the impact of child welfare practices on Native people but also participates in a debate that has [End Page 75] preoccupied the Métis community for the last forty years.1 In the story of the Raintree sisters, Cheryl as well as April, she explores both what being Métis means in urban Canada in the decades following World War II and how writing literature functions in the production and transmission of culture. Generating its own aesthetic, one political as well as pedagogical, In Search of April Raintree thus conducts a historical and sociological inquiry into the terms of Métis identification that simultaneously modifies those terms so as to mediate the effects of cultural indeterminacy and dispossession while also examining possibilities for individual self-invention and national self-determination. In its broadest lineaments as a tale of two Métis sisters taken into foster care, In Search of April Raintree draws on Mosionier’s childhood experience as a ward of the Children’s Aid Society of Winnipeg. Writing the novel was, said Mosionier, “a way of trying to find answers as to why our family seemed to come up against all these things—why my parents were alcoholics, why we had to grow up in foster homes, and why two sisters committed suicide.... A lot of the writing brought answers, and one of the biggest was that I had been ashamed of being a native person most of my life” (Interview with Garrod 81). Indeed, as Joyce Carlson observes in the foreword to the revised edition, entitled April Raintree (1984), the novel “illustrates the difficulties which many Native people face in maintaining a positive self-identity” by making one “young woman’s search for identity” representative of “a much larger story—the story of the Metis” (vii). Even as subsequent critical discussions of In Search of April Raintree have emphasized its status as an identity quest, however, they have only glanced at its engagement with Métis identity politics. Noting that “Métis, in all its multiplicity, is only one set among a multitude of subject positions, not always commensurable, that [Mosionier] occupies,” Helen Hoy argues, for example, that the novel challenges “unitary and essentialist discourses of identity” (169,168). For Jodi Lundgren, on the other hand, Mosionier’s treatment of identity partakes of a cultural syncretism characteristic of postcolonialism; for Dawn Thompson, it posits an ethnic countermemory that resists and revises the official discourse of Canadian multiculturalism; [End Page 76] for Margery Fee, it provides the novel’s dual protagonists, April and Cheryl, with a strategy to endure and combat racism (“Deploying”); and for Dee Horne, it functions to create a template on which the author “maps the stereotypography of colonial discourse” (72). As useful as these insights are, however, they fail to place Mosionier’s treatment of identity against the emergent possibilities for Métis selfhood...

Confabulation: sense-making, self-making and world-making in dementia

This study is concerned with the productive aspects of confabulation as it occurs spontaneously in dementia care, in its context, and in interaction with other care recipients. Confabulation is approached as a social and discursive event with distinct narrative features; plots and formerly established genres of plots, storylines, are used by confabulators in order to understand, manage and interact socially in the present situation. Three main functions of confabulation are discerned: 1) making sense of the current situation (sense-making); 2) maintaining a personal identity in interaction with others (self-making); and 3) organizing and legitimizing joint action in the world (world-making). The resources used by confabulating subjects are sparse and not well adjusted to changing conditions, as the number of accessible storylines is limited. This makes it difficult to apply storylines that explain the current situation satisfactorily, provide useful guidelines for how to act, as well as preserve a positive self-identity. Helping with this constitutes a major challenge in dementia care.

Outdoor Recreation as an Occupation to Improve Quality of Life for People with Enduring Mental Health Problems

This report reviews available evidence to illustrate that outdoor recreation can be used as a viable therapeutic medium for people with enduring mental health problems. It illustrates how outdoor recreation is in keeping with government mental health promotion strategies and that, if outdoor recreation is considered as an occupational role, it can facilitate positive self-identity and enhance quality of life for people with enduring mental health problems. The term ‘outdoor recreation’ encompasses activities that take place in an outdoor environment, including walking, hiking, orienteering and cycling, and more adventurous activities such as climbing, kayaking, canoeing and sailing.

Clinical Issues: Using Children’s Literature to Promote Positive Self-Identity in Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students

Clinical Issues: Using Children’s Literature to Promote Positive Self-Identity in Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students

Using Children's Literature to Promote Positive Self-Identity in Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students

Using Children's Literature to Promote Positive Self-Identity in Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students

Mormon Clients’ Experiences of Conversion Therapy

Perspectives were gathered of 50 Mormon individuals who had undergone counseling to change their sexual orientation. The data were analyzed using the constant comparative method and participant verification, thereby developing a grounded theory. A model emerged that depicted participants’ intrapersonal and interpersonal motivations for seeking conversion or “reparative” therapy, their perceived benefits and harms of such interventions, and the factors that facilitated self-acceptance and consolidation of a positive self-identity. Based on these descriptions, this study provides the foundation for a broader-based treatment approach (besides one focused solely on changing sexual orientation or adopting a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity), which is designed to produce individualized congruent solutions for religiously conflicted, same-sex-attracted clients.

Configuring an Ideal Self through Maintaining a Family Network: Northern Thai Factory Women in an Industrializing Society

This article explores unmarried factory women’s family networks and personal identity formation in an industrial community in northern Thailand. It focuses on these young women’s strong and sustainable ties to family members, and the importance of maintaining these ties in order to form a positive self-identity after leaving their rural villages. By maintaining reciprocal relationships with their families and contributing substantially to their rural households economically, these women are able to construct ideal images of themselves as dutiful village daughters while also approximating themselves to the image of “modern” women in the industrial community. Creating an ideal image of themselves illustrates the way that “modernity” and “tradition” are interpreted and embodied among these female factory workers. While theories about modernization have traditionally assumed that modernization weakens the ties among families, kin groups, and communities, more recent literature demonstrates that such theories are not applicable to many Asian societies. This study builds upon such research, revealing that in the case of young factory women in northern Thailand, family support networks actually enable these women to maximize their opportunities to work at the estate, contribute financially to their rural families, and gain some degree of financial independence and social autonomy. On the other hand, this study also shows that factory women’s practice of maintaining family ties is not just a remnant of a village-based social norm, but takes on a new meaning in their new community. Retaining reciprocal relations with their families becomes an active and creative strategy young women use in order to adjust to the rapid social change in their community and to develop a positive self-identity.

Resolution of spiritual disequilibrium by women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.

To describe the experience of restoring and maintaining spiritual equilibrium over a 14-month period by women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Qualitative approach, longitudinal design. Urban breast cancer resource center. 10 women initially one to five months from diagnosis, 5 of whom attended an eight-week self-transcendence theory-based breast cancer support group. Audiotaped interviews conducted within five months of diagnosis, two to three months later, and one year after that. Narratives were analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenologic approach. Spiritual disequilibrium resolution, breast cancer, self-transcendence. Spiritual disequilibrium characteristics, as described in several studies of women with breast cancer, were fear of dying and a sense of aloneness in a struggle to maintain self-identity. Disequilibrium triggered all participants to reach outwardly for information and support from other people and faith resources and to reach inwardly to examine life values. Shortly after diagnosis, and continuing throughout the study period, most participants also reached outwardly to support others and conduct breast cancer advocacy work. Resolving spiritual disequilibrium for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer means restoring a sense of connection to self, others, and/or a higher power. Self-transcendence views and behaviors evolving over time help women to restore their sense of connectedness, maintain hope for a future, and find renewed purpose and meaning. An initial breast cancer diagnosis may be associated with spiritual disequilibrium that can be as problematic as the physical effects of cancer and cancer treatment. Women restore equilibrium through resolving their sense of disconnectedness and regaining a positive self-identity.

Learning not to teach: part two

Part one of this series of two articles sought to explain what happens within the inquiry-based learning tutorial group of one midwifery curriculum (vol 11(6): 376–9). In part two, important elements of the review tutorial are discussed. The development of a positive self-identity is achieved through peer and self-evaluation. This is fundamental to effective accountability and advocacy in midwifery practice. Facilitation of the small group process requires skills which have not been part of the lecturer's traditional responsibilities. Inquiry-based learning helps to address those things which may be ‘known’ but are not easily taught.

The protective effects of community involvement for HIV risk behavior: a conceptual framework.

This paper presents a conceptual framework of the protective effects of community involvement in HIV/AIDS-related groups and organizations for HIV sexual risk behavior among gay and bisexual men. The framework delineates hypotheses for future research, and provides a guide for prevention programs based on the active and direct involvement of participants, particularly communities of color. The framework (1) argues that community involvement moderates the association between three socio-structural risk factors (i.e. poverty, homophobia and racism) and sexual risk behavior; (2) posits that community involvement in HIV/AIDS reduces sexual risk behavior via its effects on four mediating factors (i.e. peer norms, self-efficacy, positive self-identity and alienation); (3) proposes five socio-cultural barriers to and facilitators of community involvement in HIV/AIDS (i.e. motives for participation, poverty, acculturation, stigma and perceived opportunities); and (4) addresses burnout as one potential negative consequence of community involvement in HIV/AIDS-related organizations and groups. The conceptual framework advances the understanding of HIV sexual risk behavior by integrating both its socio-structural risk and protective factors. It contributes to health education by specifying how interventions based on collective action (e.g. community involvement) for social change may be effective in generating healthy behaviors at individual and community levels.

Autism in adulthood: the concepts of identity and difference.

It was not until 1980 that autistic spectrum disorders were officially recognized as disorders of development and not of psychoses (Wing, 1996). (In this article the term 'autism' will be used to refer to all individuals diagnosed across the autistic spectrum, including people with Asperger syndrome.) There will be many adults with autism aged over 20 years of age who are not appropriately diagnosed and who are not receiving relevant care (Trevarthen et al, 1998). Many will have been the victims of a medical model of treatment as opposed to receiving the necessary education and support. This article, the second of a two-part series (the first article (Vol 9(12): 779-84) dealt with children with autism) will explore how contemporary knowledge can help healthcare professionals to support adults with autism in the development of positive self-identities.

Race talk and local collective memory among African American men in a neighborhood tavern

This article examines how African American men, through face-to-face conversation, create individual and collective memories around issues of race. I use ethnographic data collected in an African American neighborhood tavern in Chicago to argue that tavern patrons' race talk: 1) generates a collective memory of negative interracial interaction that gives reported racial encounters a compounding effect; and 2) empowers patrons through catharsis and gives them an opportunity to re-create themselves with a positive racial self-identity. Consequences of this microlevel collective memory for interracial interaction are discussed.

Group Psychotherapy for Persons with HIV and AIDS-Related Illnesses

ABSTRACTAlthough some individuals are able to cope well with the challenges posed by HIV and AIDS, others experience psychological difficulties. This article reviews factors that facilitate or hinder successful coping with HIV including preexisting psychological functioning medical health status, quality and adequacy of social support, stress-and-coping style, and perceived expected benefits of treatment. The article reviews studies evaluating the effects of group psychotherapy intervention for persons living with HTV. The article then describes clinical issues encountered in therapy groups for persons with HIV. These clinical issues include the presence of coexisting problems unrelated to HIV/AIDS, disclosure of HIV-positive serostatus to others, making changes in transmission-risk-behavior practices, AIDS-related bereavement and caregiving stress, establishing social supports, adhering to medical care regimens, and developing a positive self-identity as a person living with HIV. Practical considerations of group therapy for HIV-positive clients are also described.