Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Grove, Debbie Lynn

Titel

Reconceptualizing Depression at Midlife: The Role of Adult Learning and Counselling

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This project chartered new territory with its theory-practice-research integration of counselling approaches, adult learning principles, and renewed conceptualizations for midlife depression. It questioned counselling efficacy including barriers and facilitators to learning and change. A core goal was critical examination of counselling processes and outcomes for depression with a focus on identifying those factors that combine to increase self-management of depression and promotion of well-being. Salutogenesis and andragogy provided a theory-practice lens through which this study was conceptualized. This project inferred that maintenance of well-being as a lifelong learning process can contribute to managing depression, and, it questioned current standardized approaches for depression. Given the prevalence of depression among adults in Canada and the absence of client-driven perspectives in the research literature about depression, this study was timely. Fifteen conversational semi-structured interviews with midlife women and men who completed counselling for depression were conducted. Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics guided this qualitative inquiry so that participants' experiences and perspectives related to depression, counselling, and change could be heard. Findings suggest that participants' unique experiences within diverse sociocultural, relational, and environmental realms and their feedback about counselling requires varied practice approaches for depression. Factors contributing to the onset of depression included childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism in the parental home, discrimination, lack of support during adolescence, occupational stress, among other factors. Depression tended to be activated by more than one factor. Adversity during childhood and adolescence impacted depression management in midlife. When past adversity combined with recent stressors, well-being was compromised. Career change, educational pursuits, and leaving one's country of origin during midlife entailed multiple stressors and linkages to depression. Change management required self-understanding of aspects that depleted and boosted well-being and identification of factors that facilitated and posed barriers to noticing and acting on depression triggers. This understanding was largely experientially learned outside the context of counselling. The therapeutic relationship was foundational to learning and change. Counselling experienced as collaborative with counsellor active engagement about client-constructed perceptions about depression, fit of approach, prior learning, and resourcefulness was presented as efficacious. Focusing was identified as a self-management skill and facilitative of meaning and purpose.