UNT Theses and Dissertations - 82 Matching Results

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Congruence, Unconditional Positive Regard, and Empathic Understanding in Child-centered Play Therapy

Description: The purpose of this study was to explore how the therapist-provided conditions of congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding were experienced and conveyed in child-centered play therapy (CCPT). Although the therapist-provided conditions are considered essential to the therapeutic process in CCPT, a gap exists between child-centered theory and empirical exploration of the process and dynamics of these relational variables in CCPT. Due to the limited research in this ar… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Jayne, Kimberly M.
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Development of the Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Near-death Experiences Scale

Description: The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure healthcare professionals’ knowledge and attitudes about near-death experiences (NDEs) that would demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties. In consultation with a focus group of six NDE experts, I developed the 50-item Knowledge and Attitudes toward Near-Death Experiences Scale (KANDES), including the 24-item KANDES–Attitude subscale (KANDES-A) and the 26-item KANDES–Knowledge subscale (KANDES-K). Including a pilot administr… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Pace, Laura
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Doctoral Level Counseling Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Learning in a Cohort Environment

Description: Learning community literature supports the use of student cohorts to enhance learning through increased peer interaction and common course work. Researchers employed the qualitative method of phenomenography to identify various ways doctoral counseling students conceptualize and experience learning in a cohort over the course of a single academic year. Participants were all 10 members of a single southwestern U.S. university counseling program doctoral cohort of full-time students between 20 … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Huffman, David D.
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The Effects of Adlerian Play Therapy on Maladaptive Perfectionism and Anxiety and in Children

Description: I used singlecase A-B-A experimental design to examine the effectiveness of Adlerian play therapy (AdPT) for children identified with clinical levels of perfectionism on the Conners Parent Rating Scale-Revised and Conners Teacher Rating Scale-Revised. Participants were 2 children, a 10 year-old Hispanic male and a 7 year-old Caucasian female. To examine the effect of AdPT on maladaptive perfectionism and anxiety, the Child-Adolescent Perfectionism Scale and the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxi… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Akay, Sinem
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The Relationship of Counselor Education Program Applicants’ Cognitive Complexity to Other Admission Criteria

Description: Counselor cognitive complexity is a counselor’s ability to recognize and organize multiple characteristics that might affect client needs. I examined whether various admissions criteria–Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing scores; previous coursework grade point averages; and faculty co-leaders’ admissions group interview ratings–for 182 applicants to a southwestern U.S. CACREP-accredited master’s counseling program predicted cognitive complexity scores… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: De La Garza, Mario A., Jr.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Resilience Among Middle School Students

Description: Resilience is the ability to survive and persevere during difficult times. Resilient people also thrive after overcoming adversity. Adolescents have many developmental tasks to overcome in their quest to becoming adults. Difficulty with these tasks can lead to academic and personal failures. Adolescents with low resilience often struggle with low self-esteem. If students are identified early as having lower levels of resilience, professional school counselors have an opportunity to provide resi… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Donaghey, Mary V.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Effects and Mediation of Child-centered Play Therapy on Young Children Who Are Anxious

Description: Anxiety is one of the most pervasive childhood disorders, with a poor prognosis if left untreated. Traditional methods of treating anxiety have been less effective with young children. Based on theoretical assumptions regarding the potential effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) as a treatment approach, I sought to explore the effects and mediating factors of CCPT on young children with symptoms of anxiety. Fifty-three participants between the ages of 6 to 8 years old were recruit… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Stulmaker, Hayley L.
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Children’s Experiences in the Therapeutic Relationship: Development and Validation of a Self-report Measure

Description: Most counselors agree that the therapeutic relationship is essential in counseling. However, the current evidence-based treatment movement has resulted in a focus on treatment protocols and techniques in outcome research. Researchers have called for the inclusion of relationship variables in future outcome research. Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically-supported, developmentally responsive intervention for children that emphasizes building a therapeutic relationship based on the… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Purswell, Katherine E.
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Experiences Learning Interpersonal Neurobiology: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Description: Neuroscience is increasingly part of the national dialogue regarding mental health. The field of interpersonal neurobiology may offer a framework for helping mental health professionals identify and apply the most relevant neuroscience principles to counseling. This study explored mental health professionals’ experiences learning IPNB. I conducted semi-structured interviews with participants (n = 6), all of whom were licensed mental health professionals and had completed a year-long study in… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Miller, Raissa
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Play Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Single-case Design

Description: The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) on the social competence, empathy, and self-regulation of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The constructs of social competence, empathy, and self-regulation were measured using the Social-Emotional Assets Rating Scale (SEARS). This study utilized a single-case design; the researcher collected data throughout the duration of the study, including baseline, treatment, and follow-up phas… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Ware, Jenifer N.
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Child-Centered Play Therapy Parent Services: a Q-Methodological Investigation

Description: Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically supported and developmentally appropriate counseling intervention for young children. Despite the clinical effectiveness of CCPT with children, no known study has been conducted in which parents were surveyed or interviewed regarding the services they have received as a part of their children’s participation in CCPT. Therefore, this study was designed to gain a better understanding of parents’ reported needs and expectations in CCPT. This … more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Lee, Kasie R.
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A Predictive Model of Adolescent Persistence in Counseling

Description: Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by profound social and emotional changes. Counseling can serve as a protective factor for decreasing the long-term negative emotional effects. Despite this fact, counselors continue to struggle with high rates of attrition among adolescent clients. When examining trends of client persistence in counseling across the lifespan, researchers found a relationship between the presence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Additionally, they… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Holm, Jessica M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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A Canonical Correlational Analysis Exploring Characteristics of Children Presenting to Counseling for Grief and Loss

Description: To date, researchers who have explored the complexity of childhood bereavement have utilized unstandardized assessment instruments and/or have independently evaluated specific constructs rather than factoring in the dimensionality of loss. The purpose of this study was to use parents' completion of established instruments--the Child Behavior Checklist and the Parenting Stress Index--to examine the multivariate shared relationship between characteristics of bereaved children referred for counsel… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Ener, Liz D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Effectiveness of Relational Equine-Partnered Counseling (REPC) on Reduction of Symptoms of PTSD in Military Veterans: a Single Case Design

Description: There is currently a crisis in military veteran mental health care. At 5-30% of veterans receive a PTSD diagnosis. Veterans face a large gap that exists in accessing and receiving high quality care. One intervention that is becoming more popular is equine assisted counseling (EAC). The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of Relational Equine-Partnered Counseling (REPC) in reducing symptoms of PTSD in military veterans. I also examined specific PTSD symptom clusters in… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Sheade, Hallie E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Essence of African Americans’ Decisions to Seek Professional Counseling Services: a Phenomenological Study

Description: Mental health disparity is an emerging national concern with evidence suggesting individuals from non-dominant populations are less likely to seek and persist in mental health services compared to their dominant culture peers. In particular, African Americans may underutilize professional counseling services due to factors such as stigma, healthy cultural mistrust, and cultural values. To date, researchers have paid limited attention to ways to break through barriers to mental health equity. … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Yaites, LaToya D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Graduate Counseling Students’ Preferences for Counselor Educators’ Teaching Dispositions, Orientations, and Behaviors: a Q Methodology Inquiry

Description: Teaching is a central role of counselor educators. However, teaching in counselor education lacks guiding standards or best practice recommendations. Existing scholarly dialogue predominantly features the perspectives of educators and addresses content knowledge, techniques, activities, and assignments for courses across the curriculum with relatively less emphasis on foundations of teaching. The purpose of this study was to develop greater understanding of counselor educator dispositions, ori… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Hurt, Kara Marie
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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Impact of Child-centered Group Play Therapy on Social-emotional Assets of Kindergarten Children

Description: Early childhood is a critical period during which children develop social-emotional competence that will affect future success. Developing social-emotional assets is of importance for kindergarten children because of their concurrent cognitive and social changes as well as the experience of transitioning from home to school environment. A growing number of schools have adopted social-emotional learning (SEL) programming to focus on fostering children’s prosocial behaviors through direct instr… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Cheng, Yi-Ju
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The Impact of Kinder Training on Early Elementary School Children’s On-task Behavior: a Single Case Design

Description: Teachers appear to feel challenged by children’s off-task behavior in the classroom. Children’s off-task behavior can result in reduced academic engagement, increased teaching stress, and strained teacher-child relationships. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of kinder training on young children’s on-task behavior in the classroom. This study utilized an experimental single-case methodology and a multiple baseline across subjects design. Three elementary school teachers co… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Chen, Szu-Yu
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Intensive Short-term Child Centered Play Therapy and Externalizing Behaviors in Children

Description: Play therapists use children’s natural symbolic play as a method of mental health treatment (Landreth, 2012). Meta-analysis research has demonstrated the effectiveness of treating children with play therapy (Bratton, Ray, Rhine, & Jones, 2005), and child-centered play therapy (CCPT) has proven to be an effective treatment for children with externalizing behaviors such as aggression and other disruptive behavior (Bratton & Ray, 2000; Bratton et al., 2005). Some studies have demonstrated the ef… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Ritzi, Rochelle M.
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Sexual Identity Development: Findings From an Exploratory Grounded Theory Study

Description: Counselors and other mental health professionals lack training on healthy sexuality and sexual identity development (SID). To begin to construct a comprehensive model of SID that can be used in counseling and counselor education, I conducted an exploratory study utilizing a grounded theory approach to collect and analyze SID stories from a purposive sample of eight adults from the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area: four male and four female; seven White Caucasian-American and one Asian American; an… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Kinsey, Lee
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Addressing Multicultural Issues in the Counselor Education Classroom: a Phenomenological Analysis

Description: Multicultural education in counselor education is a popular topic among counselor educators and scholars. To date, scholars have focused on understanding the experiences of counselor educators who teach dedicated multicultural courses. However, less attention has been given to other counselor educators who are required by ethical and training standards to address multicultural issues across the curriculum. The purpose of this study was to understand counselor educators’ experiences addressing m… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Wagner, Terra M.
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Partner: UNT Libraries
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Child Centered Play Therapy with Children Exhibiting Aggressive Behaviors

Description: Aggressive behaviors in childhood currently serve as the leading cause of counselor referrals within the United States. Children exhibiting maladaptive aggressive symptomology are at an increased risk for highly externalized and problematic behaviors across the lifespan. Emotional self-regulation and empathy are two constructs currently believed to be closely related to aggression, but a lack of research exploring these variables currently exists in the counseling literature. In this study I ex… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Wilson, Brittany
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Individual and Group Child-Centered Play Therapy: Impact on Social-Emotional Competencies

Description: A randomized controlled trial study was conducted to test the effectiveness of 16 sessions of the modalities of individual and group child-centered play therapy (CCPT) on improving social-emotional assets, including self-regulation/responsibility, social competence, and empathy. Participants were 56 students in four urban elementary schools in north central Texas, referred by teachers for disruptive or problematic behavior: 10 female and 46 male; ages 5 to 10 years with mean age 7.12; and 21 i… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Blalock, Sarah M.
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Master Therapists' Decision Making Process Concerning Adolescent Confidentiality: A Grounded Theory Approach

Description: Ethical codes and laws provide counselors with guidance for how to approach confidentiality, but there is a gap in the literature surrounding counselors' process of decision-making when managing confidentiality with adolescent clients. This study explored the decision-making process of master therapists concerning adolescent clients. I conducted semi-structured interviews with peer identified master therapist (N=10), all of whom were licensed professional counselors with 15 or more years of c… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Michero, Emily
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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