19683 research outputs found
Sort by
Creating space for meaning: Exploring emotional integration through psychodynamic art therapy in forensic mental health
No full textThis case study explores the role of psychodynamic art therapy within a high-security forensic mental health hospital in Australia, focusing on its potential to support emotional integration, relational safety, and self-understanding for individuals living with complex mental health needs. The paper follows the therapeutic journey of Sebastian, a man in his 40s diagnosed with schizophrenia, who participated in weekly art therapy over an 18-month period. Within a setting often shaped by mistrust, surveillance, and the challenges of psychosis, art therapy offered a non-verbal, symbolic space where Sebastian could engage with themes of identity, guilt, spirituality, and trauma. Grounded in Johnson’s psychodynamic model of internalisation, re-collection, and moral constraint (1998), the work evolved through symbolic imagery, collaborative art making, and attuned relational presence. Key therapeutic processes, such as transference, countertransference, and the dynamic relationship between client, therapist, and artwork are explored to illustrate the subtle interplay of containment, expression, and insight. Outcomes highlight increases in emotional literacy, symbolic communication, and relational trust. Reflections consider the importance of sustained supervision, therapist reflexivity, and ethical sensitivity in forensic practice. This study offers insight into how creative, relational approaches can gently support psychological integration within trauma-informed models of forensic rehabilitation.</p
"Inviting Methodological Reworlding": Toward a Pluriversal Future
No full textThis conceptual paper, co-authored by two academics of color, confronts the enduring coloniality embedded in academic research methodologies. Written both as critique and as method, it refuses the constraints of Western epistemological traditions that privilege objectivity, linearity, and disembodied knowledge. Instead, it enacts a methodological rupture—centering lived experience, relationality, and epistemic sovereignty. The paper identifies multiple features of dominant methodology that operate as mechanisms of exclusion: the insistence on objectivity, the privileging of linear structure, the erasure of the researcher’s body, and the universalization of Western epistemes. Through personal reflection, theoretical interrogation, and deliberate formal disruption, it invites readers into a pluriversal methodological future where multiple knowledge systems coexist without hierarchy. Practical possibilities include hybrid methodologies, co-theorizing with communities, relational ethics, language reclamation, and embodied ways of knowing. This is not an effort to reform the canon, but to rupture it—offering an invitation to imagine research as a site of resistance, care, and world-making.</p
Where knowledge systems converge: collaborating to co-design decolonized psychology curricula in Australia
No full textBarriers to decolonizing mental health training and dismantling institutionalized racism are multifaceted and involve institutional and individual factors. For example, non-Indigenous academics may lack the confidence and capability to develop and/or to teach decolonized curricula and may be reluctant to reflect on ways they may inadvertently perpetuate institutionalized racism. In 2021–2022, two Australian higher education institutions worked to decolonize two accredited Level 2 (‘pre-professional’) psychology programs. The process involved institutional reform of curriculum development procedures through co-design with Aboriginal knowledge holders. This process and the resultant curricula and assessment were co-designed by a panel of Aboriginal expert partners that included one clinical psychologist and academic, three graduate students, and an Honours student; as well as four non-Indigenous academics. We engaged in the co-design process from the perspective of ‘two-way’ learning, recognizing we were meeting at what Nakata refers to as a cultural interface, a complex space where knowledge systems were converging. We provide educators with a model to inform how they might approach efforts to decolonize curricula and examples of resources we introduced in the curricula. This model has cross-disciplinary applicability for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in mental health disciplines.</p
Stockpiling moral panics: The politics of anxiety and the securitization of ‘panic buyers’ in news media reporting of Covid-19
No full textPeople often respond to existential threats by stocking up on items they deem essential for survival. At the onset of COVID-19, Australians were among the fastest and most ardent to bulk buy supplies – especially toilet paper – leading to widespread shortages and tense scenes in supermarkets nationwide. In this article, we examine online and print news media representations of bulk buying behaviours at this time. Results highlight that the media disproportionately blamed shortages on lower socio-economic and migrant consumers and vilified them for panicking irrationally, threatening social decency and order, and being ‘un-Australian’. In turn, this rhetoric justified the logic that these shoppers should be criminalized, leading to heightened securitization in supermarkets. Paradoxically a moral panic about panic, this case study offers three contributions to moral panic literature. First, it reveals how different forms of anxiety receive differential responses. Both the compulsion to stockpile and the need to find someone to blame for the shortages were anxious responses to the conjunctural crisis of COVID-19. Yet bulk buying was widely denounced as irrational, while the expression of deep-seated anxieties about the behaviour of racialized and class-based ‘others’ was legitimated and popularized. Secondly, moral panics converge and exacerbate each other: widespread concern about ‘panic buyers’ was inflamed by being conceptually linked with earlier moral panics about hooded tops, gangs and Chinese migrants. Thirdly, moral panics not only direct blame but also deflect it. In this case, the imagined figure of a ‘crazy hoarder’ allowed wealthier, white Australians to morally differentiate their own bulk buying practices as reasonable preparation. It also distracted from structural precarities such as supermarket profiteering and weakened supply chains, highlighting how moral panics can exonerate those at the elite end of society for their involvement in conjunctural crises.</p
Delivering sovereign unmanned air capabilities in Australia
No full textThis research examines the evolving landscape of global politics and military technology, focusing on the Indo-Pacific region and China's growing assertiveness. It highlights how Australia plays a crucial role by contributing to military innovation through its sovereign defence industrial base and developing advanced technology platforms such as UAVs. The research includes case studies like the Loyal Wingman (MQ-28 Ghost Bat), which demonstrates collaboration between Defence, industry, and academia, and The Wanderer, a low-cost, expendable UAV developed rapidly. Another example is STRIX, a medium-scale UAV designed for flexibility and rapid deployment.Enablers of military innovation include collaboration with SMEs, academic hubs, and Defence primes, along with government funding and support for R&D and workforce development. However, challenges such as inconsistent funding, political cycles, and complex governance and certification processes are also highlighted.The research underscores the importance of agile and collaborative approaches to military capability development, particularly for middle powers like Australia facing resource constraints. It emphasizes the potential for sovereign defence innovation to enhance national security and international partnerships.</p
Nanozeolite-coupled biochar-based phosphorus fertilizer decreases soil N<sub>2</sub>O emissions in a subtropical Moso bamboo forest
No full textNo description supplied.</p
Inner Peace: Evaluating a Complementary Program Promoting Intra-Personal Peace at Adelaide Women's Prison, Australia
No full textThe Peace Education Program, created in 2012, is a complementary program with potential to supplement official rehabilitation interventions offered in correctional centers. The program promotes “inner peace” as an innate and universal human resource, but whilst inner peace is a key concept in positive psychology and the Good Lives Model, there is a paucity of research regarding how to operationalize and evaluate this concept. The program had not previously been the subject of independent theoretically-informed research. Drawing on a mixed methods study conducted in Adelaide Women’s Prison, this article explores the impact of the program on participants’ learning regarding inner peace. Participants reported a greater understanding about inner peace, which they described as contributing to a stronger sense of their identity, enhanced self-esteem and increased self-regulation skills, resulting in reductions in impulsivity and reactive aggression. The quantitative data indicated there was a significant increase in participants' subjective ratings of inner peace before the program (M = 12.08) and post-program completion (M = 14.00) (p </p
Crowdfunding for Chronic Diseases in the Global South: A Novel Development or Insidious Reproduction?
No full textNo description supplied.</p
Promoting gender equality in community sports infrastructure: evaluating the impact of Government policy on participation and inclusion
No full textAbstract:This study examines the implementation and impact of the Victorian Government’s ‘Fair access Policy’ and the use of policies in community sports infrastructure across two local councils in Victoria, Australia. The research employed a qualitative methodology, combining semi-structured interviews and policy document analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of these policies in promoting gender equity for women and girls in sport. Key findings reveal significant progress in policy development, facility development, and stakeholder education, contributing to enhanced participation rates among women and girls. However, challenges remain, including cultural resistance and infrastructure barriers that continue to limit access. The alignment of local policies with the Australian Gender Equality Act 2020 underscores a commitment to fostering inclusive sporting environments, while also highlighting areas for future improvement. This study underscores a commitment to fostering sporting environments, while also highlighting areas for future improvement. This study discusses the importance of tailored policy interventions in addressing historical gender disparities in community sports participation and presents insights for ongoing evaluation and enhancement of gender equity measures.</p
Explaining the Variance in Repetitions-In-Reserve After Low-Load Blood Flow Restricted Resistance Exercise
No full textAbstract:Low-load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction (LL-BFR) is prescribed using standardized protocols (e.g., 30, 15, 15, 15 repetitions at 20–40% 1-repetition maximum). However, considerable variance exists in proximity to muscular failure under these guidelines, potentially affecting the adaptive stimulus. This study aimed to evaluate the variability in LL-BFR performance and identify factors influencing this variance. In addition, the accuracy of a subjective autoregulation strategy was evaluated during LL-BFR. Twenty recreationally active adults (12 men, 8 women) completed a leg press LL-BFR protocol, a local muscular endurance (LME) task, and conditioned pain modulation (CPM) assessments. Results revealed significant interindividual differences in the number of additional repetitions completed beyond the prescribed 15 repetitions in the final set of LL-BFR (19 ± 12, range 4–47). Local muscular endurance capacity ( r = 0.63, p = 0.003) and relative CPM response ( r = 0.50, p = 0.026) were key predictors of this variance, explaining 56% of the variability. In addition, subjects tended to underestimate repetitions-in-reserve (RIR) during LL-BFR (RIR error: 12 ± 11), reducing the accuracy of subjective autoregulation strategies. These findings suggest that higher LME and greater pain modulation capacity allow individuals to complete more repetitions before failure, resulting in a heterogeneous stimulus when using fixed LL-BFR protocols. Practitioners should consider LME and pain modulation when prescribing LL-BFR and may need to adjust loads or repetitions to ensure proximity to failure. Autoregulation using RIR should be applied cautiously, with predictions made closer to task failure for accuracy.</p