An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the meaning of work to women living with breast cancer.

Objective: Work is an important aspect of everyday life. This remains true for those living with and beyond cancer. Less is known about how the meaning of work may change over the cancer journey, the needs of the individual in response to changes and how healthcare professionals and employing organisations can meet these needs.

Parents' understanding and motivation to take part in a randomized controlled trial in the field of adolescent mental health: a qualitative study.

Background: Little is known about why parents agree to take part in randomized controlled trials for adolescent mental health. This study aimed to investigate parents' perspectives on participating in a trial for psychological treatment of depression. The study explored parents' motivations, understanding of the trial and perspectives on the acceptability of the trial.

"It's like having an evil twin": an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lifeworld of a person with Parkinson's disease.

Background: This paper offers an understanding of the lifeworld of a person with Parkinson's Disease derived from interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

Aims: The paper has two main aims: firstly, to demonstrate how a focus on individual experience chimes with and can inform current ideas of a more personalised humanised form of healthcare for people living with Parkinson's disease; and secondly, to demonstrate how an IPA study can illuminate particularity whilst being able to make, albeit cautiously, more general knowledge claims that can inform wider caring practices.

Methods: It achieves these aims through the detailed description and interpretation of one person's experience of living with Parkinson's disease using the IPA approach.

Differential Subjective Experiences in Learners and Non-learners in Frontal Alpha Neurofeedback: Piloting a Mixed-Method Approach.

In a neurofeedback paradigm, trainees learn to willfully control their brain dynamics. How this is realized remains an open question. We evaluate the hypothesis that learning success is associated with a specific phenomenology.

'I know I'm not invincible': An interpretative phenomenological analysis of thyroid cancer in young people.

Objective: Thyroid cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting young people and carries an excellent prognosis. Little is known about the psychosocial issues that face young people diagnosed with a treatable cancer. This study explored how young people experienced diagnosis, treatment, and how they made sense of an experience which challenged their views on what it means to have cancer.

'Shutting the World Out': An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Exploring the Paternal Experience of Parenting a Young Adult with a Developmental Disability.

Background: An in-depth exploration of the experience of midlife fathers of developmentally disabled young adults (aged 19-32 years) was motivated by a dearth of research in this area (McKnight, PsyPAG Quarterly, 94, 2015, 10).

Method: Five fathers participated in semi-structured interviews which were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method, and Research. London: Sage).

'I'm worried about getting water in the holes in my head': A phenomenological psychology case study of the experience of undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson's disease.

Objectives: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a form of biotechnological surgery which has had considerable success for the motor improvement of Parkinson's disease and related disorders. Paradoxically, this observed motor improvement is not matched with improved psychosocial adjustment. This study contributes to a small but growing body of research aiming to understand this paradox.

"Did I bring it on myself?" An exploratory study of the beliefs that adolescents referred to mental health services have about the causes of their depression.

The causal beliefs which adults have regarding their mental health difficulties have been linked to help-seeking behaviour, treatment preferences, and the outcome of therapy; yet, the topic remains a relatively unexplored one in the adolescent literature. This exploratory study aims to explore the causal beliefs regarding depression among a sample of clinically referred adolescents. Seventy seven adolescents, aged between 11 and 17, all diagnosed with moderate to severe depression, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule, at the beginning of their participation in a randomised controlled trial.

Beyond a diagnosis: The experience of depression among clinically-referred adolescents.

Policy-makers have identified an urgent need to improve our ability to detect and diagnose depression in adolescents. This study aims to explore the lived experience of depression in clinically referred adolescents. 77 adolescents, aged between 11 and 17 with moderate to severe depression, were interviewed as part of a randomised controlled trial, using the Expectations of Therapy Interview.

"Just like talking to someone about like shit in your life and stuff, and they help you": Hopes and expectations for therapy among depressed adolescents.

Objective: To explore hopes and expectations for therapy among a clinical population of depressed adolescents.

Method: As part of a randomized clinical trial, 77 adolescents aged 11-17, with moderate to severe depression, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The interviews were analysed qualitatively using framework analysis.

'Well the Future, that is Difficult': A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Analysis Exploring the Maternal Experience of Parenting a Young Adult with a Developmental Disability.

Background: The predominant focus of extant literature exploring maternal experience of developmental disability has been stress, adaptation, efficacy of interventions and the burden of care. Most studies involve mothers of children, with scant attention given to what life is like later. This study qualitatively explores the experience of mothers of young adults (aged 19-28).

The personal experience of parenting a child with juvenile Huntington's disease: perceptions across Europe.

The study reported here presents a detailed description of what it is like to parent a child with juvenile Huntington's disease in families across four European countries. Its primary aim was to develop and extend findings from a previous UK study. The study recruited parents from four European countries: Holland, Italy, Poland and Sweden,.

"Her energy kind of went into a different place": a qualitative study examining supervisors' experience of promoting reflexive learning in students.

For family therapists in training, a key learning outcome is the development of reflexive abilities. This study explores the experience of three experienced training supervisors as they address this learning outcome with students. Transcripts of semi-structured interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Banking on brains: insights of brain donor relatives and friends from an experiential perspective.

Brain donation is critical to understand the pathological causes of neurodegenerative diseases. Increasing levels of donation requires an understanding of those factors that both encourage and deter donation. At present, there are few studies of how people understand, feel and decide about brain donation for scientific research.

Women, anger, and aggression: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.

This study reports a qualitative phenomenological investigation of anger and anger-related aggression in the context of the lives of individual women. Semistructured interviews with five women are analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. This inductive approach aims to capture the richness and complexity of the lived experience of emotional life.

The impact of Juvenile Huntington's Disease on the family: the case of a rare childhood condition.

There has been little research into the impact of Juvenile Huntington's Disease (JHD) on the family, and the issues facing this group are poorly understood. The study reported here is part of larger project that aimed to address this. Ten semi-structured interviews with the main carer were carried out, and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Caring for a child with Juvenile Huntington's Disease: helpful and unhelpful support.

There has been little research into the psychosocial impact of Juvenile Huntington's Disease on the child and family. This study investigates the social and health care needs of those affected by Juvenile Huntington's Disease. Ten semi-structured interviews with carers were analysed using the qualitative methodology interpretative phenomenological analysis.

'I was like a wild wild person': understanding feelings of anger using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

This paper is concerned with illuminating how emotion (anger) and emotion-related phenomena such as feelings, thoughts and expressions appear to the individual person. In particular, it focuses on the role of feelings in emotion experience. It does this through the qualitative analysis of interview material from a single person case study using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

I feel like a scrambled egg in my head: an idiographic case study of meaning making and anger using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

What does it feel like when one's meaning making is impoverished and threatens to break down? The aim of this study is to show how meaning making is achieved in the context of one's life and how this achievement is often a struggle for the individual. The study reports data from semi-structured interviews with a female participant, which was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). This paper examines how cultural discourses and conventions are experienced and given meaning by the individual.

Online data collection from video game players: methodological issues.

The paper outlines the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet to collect data concerning both online and offline gamers. Drawing from experience of a number of studies carried out online by the authors and by reviewing the available literature, the authors discuss the main issues concerning data collected from video game players. The paper examines a number of areas, including recruiting and utilizing participants, validity, suitable methods of data collection (i.