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- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
This thesis examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide with a specific emphasis on the rape of Tutsi women as a weapon of genocide. From the perspective of scholarship in trauma studies, an account of the conflict and colonialism leading up to the genocide is offered in order to demonstrate the historical making of the ground of collective trauma in Rwanda. Further, this thesis examines the discursive means of the perpetuation of collective trauma in the form of the Hutu demonization of Tutsi women. Shortcomings in the justice system emerging from the genocide are also discussed as a perpetuation of trauma. Finally, projects of justice and healing among Tutsi women are examined in an account of survival and resiliency. In conclusion, women that survived the genocide have navigated through societal and governmental systems to provide better lives for themselves, their families and the society.
ContributorsArmitage, Rebecca Lainé (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Casper, Monica (Committee member) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Traumas are moments which disrupt a way of being, often involving death or injury and a period of recovery for its survivors. They can be personal, experienced by an individual, or collective, experienced by a group of individuals, such as a family. Others, like the bombing of Hiroshima, impact much larger communities, such as an entire town, an entire nation, or even the world. These national traumas often include large-scale death or injury and impact the lives of thousands. In addition to their immediate physical and material affects (mortalities, economic impact, creating a need for aid), these events shatter not only an individual's sense of well- being, but also larger notions of national identity, stability and security. In many cases, they also reveal the limits of prevailing concepts of national cohesiveness, citizenship and belonging while often simultaneously upholding or reconstructing newly problematic concepts of national cohesion. Traumas are documented and grappled with through various media, including literature, poetry, art, photography, and journalism. This dissertation, "Performing Nation, Performing Trauma: Theatre and Performance after September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Peruvian Dirty War" examines how theatre and performance are utilized to respond to, document, memorialize and represent national traumas resulting from such historical crises as the Peruvian Dirty Wars, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th, as well as how they resist dominant narratives that construct national traumas as such. These traumas are relived and expressed through performance perhaps precisely because the members of a nation (consciously or subconsciously) recognize that nation is also performed. This dissertation focuses on both the content of and the reception of these performances and the particular implications that performances about national traumas hold for theatre critics/scholars, performance practitioners and audience members (those immediately connected and not so obviously connected to the event).
ContributorsNigh, Katherine Jean (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Woodson, Stephani (Committee member) / Whitaker, Matthew C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT The present study examined the relationship between the experience of trauma during childhood (ages birth -12 years) and life satisfaction in adulthood (ages of 30-45) in a sample of convenience consisting of eight (8) adults, six (6) women and two (2) men, who volunteered to participate in this qualitative study, and self-identified as having experienced trauma between birth and age 12 years. Participants were asked to describe the trauma(s) they experienced in childhood and to discuss their thoughts and feelings about present circumstances in their lives, and how their lives have been impacted by the trauma they experienced. Data were collected via in-person interviews that were audio-taped and transcribed. The data were analyzed using a process of thematic coding. Nine (9) emotional themes were identified: aggression, anger, fear, frustration, helplessness, insecurity, irritability, loneliness and sadness. Participants reported a variety of traumas experienced, and their responses to difficult experiences were varied. Participants reported being impacted differently in eight domains of life that were examined in the study: mood related problems, self-care, social support, primary partner relationship, career, decision to have children, parenting and adult life satisfaction. All participants stated they had been impacted by early life trauma, and all stated that early-experienced trauma(s) had an impact on their life satisfaction in adulthood. Inter-coder reliability for emotional thematic codes and domains of life impacted by early trauma was .82.
ContributorsCrawford, Sarah (Author) / Moore, Elsie (Thesis advisor) / Stamm, Jill (Committee member) / Caterino, Linda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
There is a lack of music therapy services for college students who have problems with depression and/or anxiety. Even among universities and colleges that offer music therapy degrees, there are no known programs offering music therapy to the institution's students. Female college students are particularly vulnerable to depression and anxiety symptoms compared to their male counterparts. Many students who experience mental health problems do not receive treatment, because of lack of knowledge, lack of services, or refusal of treatment. Music therapy is proposed as a reliable and valid complement or even an alternative to traditional counseling and pharmacotherapy because of the appeal of music to young women and the potential for a music therapy group to help isolated students form supportive networks. The present study recruited 14 female university students to participate in a randomized controlled trial of short-term group music therapy to address symptoms of depression and anxiety. The students were randomly divided into either the treatment group or the control group. Over 4 weeks, each group completed surveys related to depression and anxiety. Results indicate that the treatment group's depression and anxiety scores gradually decreased over the span of the treatment protocol. The control group showed either maintenance or slight worsening of depression and anxiety scores. Although none of the results were statistically significant, the general trend indicates that group music therapy was beneficial for the students. A qualitative analysis was also conducted for the treatment group. Common themes were financial concerns, relationship problems, loneliness, and time management/academic stress. All participants indicated that they benefited from the sessions. The group progressed in its cohesion and the participants bonded to the extent that they formed a supportive network which lasted beyond the end of the protocol. The results of this study are by no means conclusive, but do indicate that colleges with music therapy degree programs should consider adding music therapy services for their general student bodies.
ContributorsAshton, Barbara (Author) / Crowe, Barbara J. (Thesis advisor) / Rio, Robin (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis examines the evolution of the interpretation of the battle of Gettysburg, as well as how the analysis and presentation of the battle by multiple stakeholders have affected the public's understanding of the violence of the engagement and subsequently its understanding of the war's repercussions. While multiple components of the visitor experience are examined throughout this thesis, the majority of analysis focuses on the interpretive wayside signs that dot the landscape throughout the Gettysburg National Military Park. These wayside signs are the creation of the Park Service, and while they are not strictly interpretive in nature, they remain an extremely visible component of the visitor's park experience. As such, they are an important reflection of the interpretive priorities of the Park Service, an agency which is likely the dominant public history entity shaping understanding of the American Civil War. Memory at Gettysburg in the first decades after the battle largely sought to focus on celebratory accounts of the clash that praised the valor of all white combatants as a means of bringing about resolution between the two sides. By focusing on triumphant memories of martial valor in a conflict fought over ambiguous reasons, veterans and the public at large neglected unsettling and difficult conversations. These avoided discussions primarily concerned what the war had really accomplished aside from preserving the Union, as white Americans appeared unwilling to confront the war's abolitionist legacy. Additionally, they avoided discussion of the horrific levels of violence that the war had truly required of its combatants. Reconciliationist memories of the conflict that did not discuss the violence and trauma of combat were thus incorporated into early interpretations of Civil War battlefields, and continued to hinder understanding of the true savagery of combat into the present. This thesis focuses on the presence (or lack thereof) of violence and trauma in the wayside interpretive signage at Gettysburg, and argues that a more active interpretation of the war's remarkably violent and traumatic legacies can assist in dislodging a faulty legacy of reconciliationist remembrance that continues to permeate public memory of the Civil War.
ContributorsPittenger, Jack (Author) / Simpson, Brooks D. (Thesis advisor) / Schermerhorn, Calvin (Committee member) / Dallett, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation analyzes contemporary American literature, which includes novels, graphic novels, film, and television of the last forty years, to deconstruct the critical relationship between lived space, institutional power, and trauma. It examines literary representations of traumatic moments in recent American history--the attacks on the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, the emergence of the Homeland Security state, and the introduction of the "new metropolis"--to demonstrate that collective trauma at the turn of the century is very much a product of the individual's complex relationship to the state and its institutional auxiliaries. As many philosophers and social critics have argued, institutional forces in contemporary America often deprive individuals of active political engagement through processes of narrative production, and this study discusses how literature both represents and simulates the traumatic consequences of this encounter. Looking to theories on urban, domestic, and textual space, this dissertation explores and problematizes the political and psychological dimensions of space, demonstrating how trauma is enacted through space and how individuals may utilize space and exploit narrative to achieve critical distance from institutional power. Literature as a narrative medium presents vital opportunities both for exposing the machinery of institutional power and for generating positions against the narratives produced by the state.
ContributorsPattison, Dale (Author) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Clarke, Deborah (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Ayanna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Previous research indicates that difficulties in emotion regulation and greater dissociation from one's emotions are often observed among trauma survivors. Further, trauma survivors often show greater negative emotions such as anger, and diminished positive emotions such as happiness. Relatively less is known about the relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms, dissociation, emotion regulation difficulties, and non-trauma related emotional experiences in daily life. This study examined whether greater reports of posttraumatic stress symptoms, difficulties in emotion regulation, and dissociative tendencies were associated with greater intensity of anger and lower intensity of happiness during a relived emotions task (i.e., recalling and describing autobiographical memories evoking specific emotions). Participants were 50 individuals who had experienced a traumatic event and reported a range of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Participants rated how they felt while recalling specific emotional memories, as well as how they remembered feeling at the time of the event. Results showed that dissociative tendencies was the best predictor of greater intensity of anger and, contrary to the hypothesis, dissociative tendencies was predictive of greater happiness intensity as well. These findings are consistent with previous research indicating a paradoxical effect of heightened anger reactivity among individuals with dissociative tendencies. In addition, researchers have argued that individuals with a history of traumatization do not report lower positive emotional experiences. The present findings may suggest the use of dissociation as a mechanism to avoid certain trauma related emotions (e.g, fear and anxiety), in turn creating heightened experiences of other emotions such as anger and happiness.
ContributorsTorres, Dhannia L (Author) / Robinson Kurpius, Sharon (Thesis advisor) / Roberts, Nicole A. (Committee member) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Critical care environments are complex in nature. Fluctuating team dynamics and the plethora of technology and equipment create unforeseen demands on clinicians. Such environments become chaotic very quickly due to the chronic exposure to unpredictable clusters of events. In order to cope with this complexity, clinicians tend to develop ad-hoc adaptations to function in an effective manner. It is these adaptations or "deviations" from expected behaviors that provide insight into the processes that shape the overall behavior of the complex system. The research described in this manuscript examines the cognitive basis of clinicians' adaptive mechanisms and presents a methodology for studying the same. Examining interactions in complex systems is difficult due to the disassociation between the nature of the environment and the tools available to analyze underlying processes. In this work, the use of a mixed methodology framework to study trauma critical care, a complex environment, is presented. The hybrid framework supplements existing methods of data collection (qualitative observations) with quantitative methods (use of electronic tags) to capture activities in the complex system. Quantitative models of activities (using Hidden Markov Modeling) and theoretical models of deviations were developed to support this mixed methodology framework. The quantitative activity models developed were tested with a set of fifteen simulated activities that represent workflow in trauma care. A mean recognition rate of 87.5% was obtained in automatically recognizing activities. Theoretical models, on the other hand, were developed using field observations of 30 trauma cases. The analysis of the classification schema (with substantial inter-rater reliability) and 161 deviations identified shows that expertise and role played by the clinician in the trauma team influences the nature of deviations made (p<0.01). The results shows that while expert clinicians deviate to innovate, deviations of novices often result in errors. Experts' flexibility and adaptiveness allow their deviations to generate innovative ideas, in particular when dynamic adjustments are required in complex situations. The findings suggest that while adherence to protocols and standards is important for novice practitioners to reduce medical errors and ensure patient safety, there is strong need for training novices in coping with complex situations as well.
ContributorsVankipuram, Mithra (Author) / Greenes, Robert A (Thesis advisor) / Patel, Vimla L. (Thesis advisor) / Petitti, Diana B. (Committee member) / Dinu, Valentin (Committee member) / Smith, Marshall L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Contemporary theories of trauma identify the creation of a coherent trauma narrative and therapeutic exposure to trauma memories as potential recovery mechanisms. These factors are often inherent to the disclosure process, resulting in a parallel theoretical framework for experimental research that conceptualizes disclosure as a therapeutic intervention. The present investigation examined the moderational impact of disclosure following trauma on the link between trauma severity and symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Disclosure status (discloser or nondiscloser), highest extent of disclosure, and length of delay to first disclosure were tested in a series of moderated regression models among a sample of female physical and sexual assault victims (N = 1087). Findings indicate that engaging in more detailed disclosure is associated with a modest beneficial impact on PTSD, but that the majority of nondisclosers have lower symptom levels than disclosers. There is also evidence for a small subset of nondisclosers that remain at heightened distress. A unique effect was found for disclosure delay, such that for physical assault, delaying disclosure is associated with a progressively weakening negative relation between time since the trauma and PTSD. At extreme delays, the association may become positive. Findings have implications for theories of trauma recovery and therapeutic interventions, including concerns about early interventions that emphasize disclosure. Future research may benefit from focusing on nondisclosing trauma victims to gain greater insight into recovery processes.
ContributorsFields, Briana (Author) / Barrera, Manuel (Thesis advisor) / Holtfreter, Kristy (Committee member) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Chassin, Laurie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
In past decades, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) rapidly gained attentionas a public health crisis due to dose-response relationships with a range of health and
social problems, and early mortality. Converging studies show that ACEs are a pandemic
in the general population of the United States—even in middle to upper-middle class
families that are considered to be ‘better off’. There have been collaborative efforts in
public health to target root-causes of childhood adversity and increase resilient
adaptation in individuals and families at risk. Due to the importance of fostering positive
adaptation in the midst of adversity, this dissertation sought to examine both
vulnerability and protective factors in children’s proximal ecology—e.g., parents and
caring adults at school. A population-based study in this dissertation revealed that
parents’ emotional well-being, measured as negative feelings toward parenting, greatly
influences developing children, so as support and resources for parenting. The presence
of caring adults as a protective factor in teens with highly competitive settings—a newly
identified at-risk group due to high pressure to achieve and internalizing/externalizing
problems. Lastly, this dissertation discusses conceptual and methodological limitations
in current ways of measuring ACEs and provide future directions for research, practice,
and policy. Suggestions include frequent assessments on reaching consensus on how to
define ACEs, expanding the concept of ACEs, considering the duration, timing, and
severity of the event. Healthcare professionals have important roles in public health;
they incorporate frequent assessments on parents’ emotional wellbeing and needs for
parenting as a part of care. Ongoing support from multiple disciplines is necessary to
reduce the impact of ACEs and strengthen resilience development of children and
families.
ContributorsSuh, Bin (Author) / Luthar, Suniya (Thesis advisor) / Pipe, Teri (Thesis advisor) / Castro, Felipe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022