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The purpose of this study was twofold: to explore the everyday experiences and interpretations of verbalised self-criticism in emergent adult males (ages 18–25) in social contexts and, secondly, to explore the utilisation of vignettes in phenomenological research exploring social processes.

Four Australian male participants participated in semi-structured interviews to share the participants' experiences and sense-making of self-criticism in social contexts. Vignettes of verbalised self-criticism were used to prompt attentive reflection. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse the data.

Four superordinate themes emerged from participant responses: (1) searching for context, (2) self-improving or self-attacking, (3) self-criticism as a social tool, and (4) engaging and distancing responses.

This study provides useful insights into how verbalised self-criticism in social contexts was experienced by four emergent adult males. Furthermore, this study provides a working example of how vignettes can be used within an interpretative phenomenological analysis frame to prompt attentive reflection on sensitive, nuanced social phenomenon. Implications for future research are discussed. Further research could use this study's findings to explore female responses to verbalised self-criticism and potential causality between contextual factors and the nature of responses.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of compassion-focussed therapy (CFT) on anxiety in a small sample of adults with intellectual disability.

A mixed-methods design was employed. Participants (n=3) completed questionnaire measures of anxiety and self-compassion on three occasions: pre-intervention, post-intervention and, at three months follow-up. Post-intervention, they also took part in recorded interviews that were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Findings were then synthesised to develop a comprehensive understanding of their overall experience.

Final data synthesis revealed five themes: participant anxiety decreased (reliable for all participants); the faulty self; improved positive compassionate attitudes; increased sense of common humanity; and mindful distraction techniques.

This research paper offers in-depth analysis of three participants’ experiences rather than reporting in less detail about a larger number of participants. The self-compassion scale required considerable support and reasonable adaptation to be used with these clients.

Only two other studies have explored the use of CFT with people with intellectual disabilities.

Restorative justice (RJ) approach is currently not a mainstream practice for addressing the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Singapore. In IPV, the persons affected are not limited to the persons experiencing violence (PEV) and persons using violence (PUV). There is a ripple effect when IPV happens and oftentimes, children, significant others and people in the community are negatively impacted. In short, IPV hurts self and relationships. Being relational in focus, the authors believe that an RJ approach can bring about healing and growth for persons directly or indirectly affected by the violence by building connectedness and a person’s relational capacity.

The authors proposed a framework for IPV work in the context of males using violence and females experiencing violence. Anchored in four working principles that are based on RJ, this framework seeks to guide practitioners to journey with affected parties in their healing process. In their endeavour to make a case for RJ in IPV work, the authors also offered possibilities and challenges for restorative IPV intervention in Singapore’s current landscape.

The authors strongly believe that an RJ-influenced practice has the potential to break the violent cycle by disrupting the conditions associated with IPV, including isolation, economic stress and societal norms regarding gender expectations. The authors also opined that an RJ-influenced practice can create a sustained longer-term outcome of healthy relationships through establishing non-violence behaviour as a societal norm.

This paper proposes that shame is a powerful, underlying force in organisational dynamics; that it affects individual motivation and performance as well as organisational cohesiveness, and impacts strongly on interpersonal relationships and the way that organisations are perceived both internally and in the public arena. Shame is highlighted as a cause of bullying and scapegoating in organisations. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of shame theory for leadership, suggesting that an awareness of shame transactions at all levels of organisational life may help leaders to manage these interpersonal spaces more effectively.

This paper aims to investigate parents' beliefs about the causes of their child's Type 1 diabetes to understand if this affects the way diagnosis is processed and if this impacts on sibling parenting.

Online, semi-structured qualitative interviews with nine parents of children with Type 1 diabetes who have at least one non-diabetic child. The results were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

Two interlinked themes were identified: “What ifs”: parents postulated underlying genetic reasons for their child's diabetes and had working theories about the triggers of diabetes that included stress, infection, vaccination or a virus. Developing a personal aetiology of their child's condition allowed some a feeling of control, while others focused on practical ways to manage diabetes. “Having something to blame”: narratives dwelt on the relationship between beliefs about causes and self-blame. Some believed that acting on an identified trigger reduced personal guilt.

Although internet access is widespread in the UK, a limitation of this research is that it excluded those without internet access.

The findings of this research may provide greater depth and a more holistic perspective to the health promoter to better support parents of Type 1 diabetics.

The analysis of illness narratives that this research provides may offer a greater understanding of the social context in which health and illness develop. This research found some examples of parental confidence about the causes and triggers of their child's diabetes being positively associated with a sense of control. This might indicate the value of a more comprehensive larger-scale study to establish whether parents who are supported to develop a personalised conception of the aetiology of their child's diabetes develop a greater sense of coherence and well-being regarding their child's condition.

There is very limited literature focusing on the beliefs of sufferers and their families about Type 1 diabetes causality. Of that which does exist, some research is heterogenous in its sampling of Types 1 and 2 diabetes sufferers. This study offers a rare, focused insight into the beliefs of parents about the background causes and more proximal triggers of their child's Type 1 diabetes.

Research has identified that workplace bullying is a significant problem within health care, with health-care trainees at particular risk. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of workplace bullying from the perspectives of trainee clinical psychologists.

A total of 14 trainee clinical psychologists recruited from British universities participated in semi-structured telephone interviews. Qualitative data was analysed using thematic analysis.

The analysis generated four main themes: workplace bullying “activating threat responses”, the process of trainee clinical psychologists “making sense of bullying”, “difficulties navigating power within the system” when experiencing and reporting bullying and “finding safety and support” within and outside of work contexts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first known study of workplace bullying specifically within clinical psychology. The research has implications for guidance for training institutions and professional bodies associated with trainee mental health professionals.

This paper aims to argue that to address those factors that contribute to the probability of offending, the origins of such factors should be understood, and interventions that recognise the functional aspects of criminogenic capacities should be developed.

The paper provides a theoretical basis for trauma sensitive practice by providing an evolutionary understanding of human harmfulness alongside a summary of the impact of adversity and abuse on the developing child.

The paper proposes an overarching framework that uses compassion-focused therapy for risk reducing interventions with men who cause harm to others.

This paper encourages forensic practitioners to develop a trauma aware approach to intervention design and delivery. The paper provides an overview of a compassion-focused therapy as approach to intervention that conceptualises criminogenic capacities within a more holistic and functional framework.

Forensic interventions have been slow to assimilate evidence from adverse childhood experience research and have therefore been limited in their ability to address the functional origins of criminogenic need. This paper offers a framework that allows practitioners to address risk while also allowing individuals to process their own trauma and adversity.

The primary purpose of this descriptive study was to compare the levels of, and relationships among mental health problems, mental health shame, self-compassion, work engagement and work motivation between workers in Japan (collectivistic and success-driven culture) and the Netherlands (individualistic and quality-oriented culture).

A cross-sectional design, where convenience samples of 165 Japanese and 160 Dutch workers completed self-report measures about mental health problems, shame, self-compassion, engagement and motivation, was used. Welch t-tests, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to compare (1) the levels of these variables, (2) relationships among these variables and (3) predictors of mental health problems, between the two groups.

Dutch workers had higher levels of mental health problems, work engagement and intrinsic motivation, and lower levels of shame and amotivation than Japanese workers. Mental health problems were associated with shame in both samples. Mental health problems were negatively predicted by self-compassion in Japanese, and by work engagement in Dutch employees.

The novelty of this study relates to exploring differences in work mental health between those two culturally contrasting countries. Our findings highlight potential cultural differences such as survey responding (Japanese acquiescent responding vs Dutch self-enhancement) and cultural emphases (Japanese shame vs Dutch quality of life). Job crafting, mindfulness and enhancing ikigai (meaningfulness in life) may be helpful to protect mental health in these workers, relating to self-compassion and work engagement. Findings from this study would be particularly useful to employers, managers and staff in human resources who work with cross-cultural workforce.