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open access

Every Body Matters: College-Aged Women's Experiences of Body Positivity and Self-Acceptance

Description: The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological inquiry was to explore college-aged women's experiences of body positivity and self-acceptance. I applied a conceptual framework that blended feminist identity development model (FIDM) and relational cultural theory (RCT) to answer the following questions: (a) what are the lived experiences of college-aged women who identify as having a positive and accepting body image? and (b) how do college-aged women's intersecting identities contribute to… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Rogers, Jordan N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Emotional Needs of Mothers of Multiple Birth Children

Description: The purpose of this study was to assess the emotional support needs of mothers of multiple birth children based on administration of a survey the researcher developed. The survey consisted of 25 demographic items, six 6-point Likert scale items, and three open-ended questions. Likert scale items were based on amount of perceived emotional support mothers received in their environments at the time of survey administration. Open-ended questions addressed negative and positive aspects of parent… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Walker, Emily N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Child Parent Relationship Therapy: A Program Evaluation

Description: For the past 40 years, one southwestern US university counseling program has sponsored two mental health training clinics in which master's and doctoral level students have learned to provide child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) services to community parents. In their training, students learn about the positive effects of CPRT, particularly on parental stress. To date, however, no program evaluation has been conducted at these clinics focusing specifically on parental stress outcomes afte… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Ley, Tiffany Andresen
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Combat Near-Death Experiences: An Exploratory, Mixed-Methods Study

Description: This mixed-methods study’s purpose was a systematic comparison of contents and aftereffects of near-death experiences (NDEs) occurring in a variety of circumstances with those occurring in combat. They completed an online survey: a demographic questionnaire, the Near-Death Experience Scale, the Life Changes Inventory-Revised (LCI-R), and four narrative response items. Survey completers were 68 participants: 20 combat near-death experiencers (cNDErs) and 48 non-NDErs (nNDErs). The 29% of partici… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Goza, Tracy H.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effects of a Self-care Intervention for Counselors on Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction

Description: This study investigated the impact of a psychoeducational and experiential structured counselor self-care curriculum, developed by Drs. Charles and Kathleen Figley, on compassion fatigue and the prevention of professional impairment as measured by the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL), Version 5. Volunteer licensed professional counselors, supervisors, and interns from four children's advocacy centers in Texas were assigned to treatment group (n = 21; 20 females, 1 male; mean age 34.4 year… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Koehler, Christine Marie Guthrie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Systematic Review of Research on After-Death Communication (ADC)

Description: In this study, after-death communication (ADC) is defined as spontaneously occurring encounters with the deceased. Reported occurrences of ADC phenomena range widely among published ADC research studies, so a systematic review of 35 studies was conducted. A rubric was developed to evaluate the methodological quality; final inter-rater reliability among three raters was r = .90. Results were used to rank the studies; the methodologically strongest studies were used to arrive at best estimate ans… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Streit-Horn, Jenny
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Problem Behaviors of Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Single Subject Design

Description: A growing disparity between the mental health needs of children and their lack of treatment served as the basis of this study. To address this existent gap, I proposed that child-centered play therapy (CCPT), a holistic treatment that fosters children's emotional, developmental, and social growth would serve as a viable treatment. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of CCPT on problem behaviors among children identified with an intellectual disability. Specifically, a single cas… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Swan, Karrie L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Adventure in the Classroom: Role and Practices of Adventure Therapy in School Counseling Curriculum

Description: The purpose of this study was to explore the role and impact of adventure therapy (AT) on student development and to identify the greatest challenges to the implementation of AT in schools. The Delphi method was used to generate consensus of opinion within a group of experts in the field of adventure therapy and school counseling. Purposive sampling was used to identify the members of the expert panel and the definition of consensus was set at 80% for each item. Content and descriptive analy… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Sharp, Jason Reid
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Confirming the Constructs of the Adlerian Personality Priority Assessment (Appa)

Description: The primary purpose of this study was to confirm the four-factor structure of the 30-item Adlerian Personality Priority Assessment (APPA) using a split-sample cross-validation confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The APPA is an assessment, grounded in Adlerian theory, used to conceptualize clients based on the four personality priorities most commonly used in the Adlerian literature: superiority, pleasing, control, and comfort. The secondary purpose of this study was to provide evidence for dis… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Dillman Taylor, Dalena
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Child Centered Play Therapy and Adverse Childhood Experiences: Effectiveness on Impulsivity and Inattention

Description: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a certain set of abuse household dysfunction experiences that many children in the United States experience. Children who experience multiple ACEs are more likely to have negative mental and physical health issues as they grow older. These outcomes include ADHD, depression, cancer, heart disease, and early death. In this study, I examined the effectiveness of child centered play therapy (CCPT), a developmentally appropriate treatment modality, with ch… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Kram, Kirsten
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effective Caregiver Consultation in Play Therapy: A Program Evaluation

Description: This study examined the effectiveness of caregiver consultations in caregiver's child's play therapy process through a program evaluation lens. Archival data was used from a counseling clinic located in the central southwestern United States. Quantitative data was collected from caregiver who filled out assessments (PSI-4 and CBCL) about their child's progression through play therapy and both groups frequency of attendance. A regression analysis was used to determine if caregivers perceived cha… more
Date: December 2022
Creator: Lowe, Paige Mathison
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Developing a Partnership for Internship Training at a Community-Based Animal Assisted Therapy Practice

Description: The effectiveness of a pre-graduation animal assisted therapy internship site was investigated through an ethnographic, phenomenological methodology with mixed-methods components. A total of 12 participants who fit into either the category of supervisor, intern, or administrator involved in the animal assisted therapy practice, were interviewed. A research team analyzed the qualitative interview data and researcher participant field notes and came to a consensus of eight major themes: ranch env… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Bugni, Brooke R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Group Activity Play Therapy for Preadolescents: Effects on Low Self-Esteem

Description: Research shows that preadolescent females are more prone to negative self-perceptions than their male counterparts which places them at greater risk of developing mental health problems stemming from low self-image. The purpose of this randomized, controlled outcome study was to examine the effectiveness of group activity play therapy (GAPT) compared to an evidenced based social skills/self-esteem group. Participants were 29 fourth and fifth grade girls in two Title I schools in the southwest U… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Yousef, Dina K.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Development of Disordered Eating Among Female Undergraduates: A Test of Objectification Theory

Description: Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) has been used to explain how mechanisms related to socialization, sexual objectification, and psychological variables interact to predict mental health difficulties. Among a sample of 626 undergraduate women (age 18-24), this study empirically tested components of Moradi and Huang’s (2008) model and extended it by including additional socialization experiences (i.e., sexual abuse, societal pressures regarding weight and body size). Structural… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Phillips, Sarah Ramby
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Child Teacher Relationship Training As a Head Start Early Mental Health Intervention for Children Exhibiting Disruptive Behavior: an Exploratory Study

Description: This exploratory study examined the effectiveness of child teacher relationship training (CTRT) with at-risk preschool children exhibiting disruptive behavior. The participants included a total of 23 Head Start teachers and their aides, and children identified by their teachers as exhibiting clinical or borderline levels of externalizing behavior problems. Teacher participants included 22 females and 1 male; demographics were reported as 56% Hispanic ethnicity, 17% Black American, and 22% Europ… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Gonzales, Terri Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Impact of Child-Centered Play Therapy on Academic Achievement of Children in Poverty

Description: Childhood poverty is a prevalent concern in the United States and is associated with poor psychological and academic outcomes. Psychosocial stressors associated with life in poverty may interrupt the development of a positive self-concept, ultimately hampering the academic achievement of children in poverty. As the therapeutic objectives of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) support the development of an increasingly positive self-concept, I explored the impact of CCPT on the academic achieveme… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Tucker, Sarah K
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Confirming the Constructs of the Child Interpersonal Relationship and Attitudes Assessment

Description: The purpose of this study was to confirm the four-factor model of the Child Interpersonal Relationship and Attitudes Assessment (CIRAA) in order to establish the instrument’s factor/structure validity using a sample different than that used in instrument development. The CIRAA was the first parent-report instrument based on child-centered theory and designed to measure play therapy outcomes. Its four factors are Self-Regulation (formerly Self-Control), Interpersonal Relationships, Coping Skills… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Chung, Chiao-Feng
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Child-Centered Play Therapists' Experiences Delivering Shortened Session Lengths

Description: This phenomenological study examined the experiences and perceptions of child-centered play therapists who deliver shortened sessions in the clinic setting. Using the phenomenological analysis procedures based on Moustakas' modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method, a coding team of three doctoral students found 10 themes related to child-centered play therapists' (N = 5) experiences delivering shortened session lengths. Each theme is defined and further described using verbatim transcript example… more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Edwards, Joshua Michael
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

South Asian Women’s Experiences In Counseling: An Exploration Of Working Alliance, Multicultural Competence, Acculturation, And Cultural Value Conflicts

Description: The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of client-counselor working alliance by understanding the effects of acculturation, perceived multicultural competence in counselors, and cultural value conflicts among South Asian women. The study was based on a nonrandom sample of women ages 18 to 39 years living in the United States who had completed at least three counseling sessions with a mental health professional in the last 5 years. Forty participants completed the online survey. P… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Rasheed, Masuma
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Phenomenological Exploration of Counselors' Experiences in Personal Therapy

Description: Professional counselors may choose to increase self-awareness and/or engage in self-care through the use of personal therapy. In particular, counselors may feel reluctant to pursue personal therapy due to stigma related to their professional identity. To date, researchers have paid limited attention to the unique concerns of counselors in personal therapy. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore counselors' experiences and decision-making in seeking personal therapy. I address… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Bevly, Cynthia M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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