Resilience and Coping Experiences Among Masters ...

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study experiences, and eight overlapping coping themes involving support from ..... concern and frequent phone calls (esp. mom and sis) have been amazing.
Resilience and Coping Experiences Among Masters Professional Psychology Students in South Africa (Running head: Resilience and Coping) David John Edwards Humphrey Siphiwe B. Ngcobo Stephen David Edwards Department of Psychology, University of Zululand, Private Bag X1001, KwaDlangezwa, 3886 Address correspondence to: David Edwards. Email: [email protected] A longitudinal, five year study, with a qualitative, phenomenological approach, investigated resilience and coping experiences of 47 professional psychology masters degree students in their first year of training in South Africa. There were 12 men and 31 women, with a mean age of 26 years and an age range from 21 to 51 years. Findings revealed four main resilience themes of struggle experiences, personal resilience experiences, life management experiences and study experiences, and eight overlapping coping themes involving support from peers, friends, family and spouses; time management; personal skills, study skills; exercise, sport and recreation; personal therapy; spiritual and religious activities; and rest and relaxation. The applicability and value of the findings are discussed in relation to similar local and international studies. The professional master degree psychology course is an intensive training program, which results in extensive client management skill development. It requires thorough and careful selection for entry into and exit out of the program, continual monitoring of students progress as well as comprehensive, theoretical and practical examinations (Pillay & Edwards, 2004; Edwards & Pilay, 2006). Self-reflection and personal development is a core process, which occurs during the first year of master degree studies and continues throughout the students’ personal, academic and professional life. The purpose of this qualitative research was to investigate how first year master students experienced resiliency in relation to their program and what specific coping mechanisms they used to manage the workload. The phenomenon of resilience, in and among individuals, families and groups has been the subject of considerable multidisciplinary research. The term “resilience” is derived from the Latin “salire,” and thus popularly defined as the propensity to “bounce back” in coping with adversity. A standardized resilience scale identifies characteristics of self-reliance, meaning, equanimity, perseverance and existential aloneness (Wagnild, 2012). Comprehensive literature reviews have noted that definitions have evolved over time, that, despite experiencing adversity, resilience is understood as positive adaptation, the ability to maintain or regain health, and that cultural and contextual aspects of the phenomenon need further investigation (Herrman, Stewart, Diaz-Granados, Berger, Jackson & Yuen, 2011; Theron & Theron, 2010). Recent research has investigated resilience in nurses (Taylor & Reyes, 2012), medical doctors (Ahmed, Kameshwari, Mathew, Ashok, Shaikh &

Muttappallymyalil, 2011), technikon students (Cloete & Ballard , 2011), the military, and resiliency interventions have been recommended (Lee, Sudom & McCreary; Morgan & Bibb, 2011). As South African clinical psychologists, with experience as both students and lecturers in professional psychology training programs, we were conscious of the considerable resilience and coping experiences required by the workload in such programs. As researchers we considered that documentation and explication of such phenomena could be valuable, possibly therapeutic, to current as well as future students. We therefore decided to employ a heuristic phenomenological approach (Moustakas, 1994) to describe, explicate and document such phenomena. Therefore the two qualitative research questions that inspired the research were: (1) How have you experienced resiliency in regard to the program? (2) What specific coping mechanisms do you use? Method

Design This qualitative study, which used a phenomenological approach, was undertaken at a Historically Black University in South Africa. A sample of 47 masters psychology students, enrolled in professional psychology programs, were asked to provide written responses to the following two open ended- qualitative questions: (a) How have you experienced resilience in regard to the program? (b) What specific coping mechanisms do you use? Sample data was collected over a five year period, involving five master’s professional psychology student classes from the years 2007 through 2011. Participants There were 47 participants, 43 of whom provided biographical data. These were 12 men and 31 women, with mean age of 26 years and an age range from 21 to 51 years. In terms of South African population equity groupings there were 28 Black, 12 White and 3 Asian participants, comprised of 21 isiZulu, 11 English, 4 isiXhosa, 3 Siswati speakers as well as 1 Xitsonga, 1 Afrikaans and 1 German speaker. The participants thus satisfied the local Psychology Departmental vision and mission to adopt a multicultural approach consistent with national demographics and international standards, in training predominantly Black professional psychologists, who still remain in relatively short supply in South Africa (Edwards, 2010; Ngcobo & Edwards, 2008). Ethical matters: Participants were informed that the research was concerned with their resilience and coping experiences, guaranteed confidentiality, assured that they should participate only if they were happy and willing to do so and requested not to write their names on their responses. Phenomenological approach to data analysis Phenomenology may be broadly described as a philosophical movement that permeated such human, social sciences as psychology with regard to any orientation

attitude, approach, design, strategy, method, or technique with lived experience as its subject matter (Edwards, 2006; Giorgi, 1970; Kruger, 1988; Polkinghorne, 1989, Spinelli, 1989; Stones, 1986, Moustakas, 1994). Phenomenology is essentially concerned with the study of phenomena (Heidegger, 1927, Husserl, 1917). A phenomenon is something that reveals itself to consciousness. A phenomenological approach refers to an attitude of consciously suspending any assumptions in order to allow phenomena to reveal themselves in their fresh, original reality. Such an approach reveals continually new discoveries as reality changes. It also means in depth investigations of essential structures of reality. This changing reality includes the consciousness of the phenomenologist as well as the phenomena revealing themselves to consciousness. The approach is subjective to the extent to which it is concerned with the lived –world as it appears to the phenomenologist. It is objective to the extent to which the phenomena are accurately interpreted by the phenomenologist and the truth of their reality validated by other phenomenologists (Giorgi, 1970), in this case, the three authors of the present study. A phenomenological approach requires persistent discipline and insistence on continuous careful bracketing of bias and rigorous suspension of assumptions, preconceptions and theories, in order continually to allow such original, new or fresh reality to be revealed. In the present study, participants wrote descriptions of their experiences. The transcribed narratives were analysed following a general, heuristic method described by authors such as Giorgi (1970), Stones (1986), Polkinghorne (1989) and Moustakas (1994). This implied that because they had personally experienced resilience and coping during their masters studies, the authors were reflexively aware of the heuristic nature of the investigation, while at the same time consciously viewing the present student experiences as original and unique. In practice, the descriptions were read repeatedly to obtain a sense of the whole, before student experiences were analyzed into summary themes for each student for each research question. Individual summary themes were then synthesized into collective profile themes for each research question. The two collective profile themes appear below, followed by illustrative individual student examples. In each case, the respective student description is identified by the letter “S” (for student) and an identifying number. Results Resilience Experiences Resilience experiences fell into four broad themes, (1) struggle experiences (2) personal bounce back resilience experiences, (3) life management experiences and (4) study experiences. These are described in the following paragraphs, with relevant student exemplars. (1) Struggle experiences with special reference to course workload ranged from difficult, disturbing, demanding, challenging, tough, hectic, emotionally draining, confusing, pressurizing and stressful, through to anxiety provoking, fear inducing, guilt inducing, depressing, traumatic, crisis provoking, overwhelming and paralyzing. The first example describes both struggle and resilience experiences. The second example below concerns a student for whom the struggle was so traumatic that no resilience was perceived to have been experienced. Out of the 47 individual student

experiential descriptions, this was the only one for whom the challenges appeared so traumatic as to overwhelm resilience. It is specifically included for that reason and because it so graphically portrays the extent of struggle occasionally experienced during professional psychology masters degree studies. S4: At the beginning I felt hopeless, unable to adjust with the load of work I was subjected to. I thought about giving up, I felt it was a mistake, I was not fit enough. I understood why it is recommended that one see a therapist before embarking on this course. Another experience that I underwent was fluctuation in terms of my personality. I became very reserved, quiet and my participation in class declined dismally. Understanding the actual reason why so much pressure is exerted on me made me gain strength and motivation; the fact that I am being prepared for challenges that internship and work might being in the near future. Also, self development is activated. Having such insight saw me through. S27. It hasn’t been easy at all. I believe however that the workload is not so much of the problem, but being disorganized makes things very slow and perplexed. I admit there is a lot of work to do and given the circumstances, one has had a lot of sleepless nights and considering the fact that this has happened before it becomes a challenge to rise back and be resilient. I honestly don’t think I have been resilient at all whatsoever. I feel that psychology M1 is more of a punishment level than learning. It is really traumatising and ego destructing in the sense that one feels dysfunctional. (2) Personal resilience experiences included viewing the course as a challenge, getting personal therapy from a psychologist, motivation, drive, determination, perseverance, hard work, gratefulness for the opportunity, enjoying the experience, insight into the level of study for personal, academic and social development, personal insight into one’s strengths and development areas, realizing the value of the course, realizing one’s potential, having a positive attitude, being more autonomous, realising that help from others was available, experiencing value and learning through suffering to build greater empathy for clients, appreciation of family support, allowing time to recuperate after situations perceived as negative, experimenting, realizing and appreciating one’s growth, being emotionally detached when necessary, gaining personal insight, taking time off to find oneself and positive self talk , as, for example, “what does not kill one makes one stronger.” S38. Initially, at the start of the program, my strength was weak. With the aid of therapy and working together as a group, I realized that I was not alone and could access help whenever it was need. Some days it feels hopeless and I feel like giving up. But, I look at my ultimate goal, which is being a successful psychologist and I realize that each day brings me closer to my dream. I have decided to change my outlook on life and allow myself to recuperate after every situation I perceive as negative. The workload often seems too much to handle, but taking each day as it comes, and balancing my work helps me to feel that I am achieving my small time goals. I guess it all adds up in the end. S46. I have experienced a lot of resilience. Sometimes I sit on my study desk and wonder what to do and what not to do because of the lot of work we have.

And sometimes I go through a day without doing anything because of confusion about what to do and what to postpone for that day. And I end up feeling emotionally and cognitively pent-up. But because I always tell myself that it’s worth it, and if it does not kill me it’s only making me stronger, I usually bounce back and do my work the following day. (3) Life management experiences included planning for the course through talking to past students, forming study groups, cutting down other commitments, rescheduling plans, rest, sleep, relaxation, taking each day as it comes, keeping a balance between work, social life and exercise, working smart in learning what will be beneficial in future, self-belief, self-efficacy and multitasking. S33. At the beginning of the program, I felt like the program was going to be tough and I felt like I did not have enough resources (mental) to deal with it. I was very anxious about it and together with my classmates; we formed groups (study groups). These groups were hard to maintain. We ended up meeting informally on a convenience basis to discuss whatever academic topic warranted our attention. Sleeping becomes hard as any relaxation induces feelings of guilt. This in one way or the other leads to procrastination as one cannot focus without enough sleep. S35. This year has been really tough and challenging in a way that no body can ever prepare you for. I think that if one is not resilient then one would dissolve in the chaos & enormous work load. To be resilient in his year I feel one must have a positive attitude, be a positive person and be willing to feel like you are drowning – and then come up from the water and feel you have survived! The huge work load puts you in a place of crisis, but its important for you to experience this in order to understand your clients and feel – empathy for them within their pain. The resilience lets our souls grow to be stronger. (4) Study experiences were described as time and work management skills, involving setting goals, drawing up study schedules, making lists, prioritizing, planning ahead, doing assignments immediately, working harder at more important sections, remaining focussed, tackling one task at a time, completing what one started, rescheduling subjects on a daily basis, balancing workload, reflecting on difficult tasks and re-planning, resetting as well as adjusting plans and goals. S13: To me, I haven’t really experienced a crisis relating to the course yet, but generally, when a stressful situation does occur, I simply make a list of things that need to be done, prioritise them, and then do them. In my opinion, to panic would just make the whole situation worse and cause a serious crisis. S17: At the beginning I just thought this is too much for me, but as time went on, I just realized that its all for the best, All I have to do is to manage my time and reschedule my plans, cut down other commitments that I can live without. Coping Mechanisms Coping mechanisms fell into eight interrelated themes: (1) support from peers, friends, family and spouses; (2) planning and managing time to balance personal and

work life; (3) personal skills; (4) study skills; (5) exercise, sport and recreation; (6) personal therapy or counselling; (7) spiritual and religious activities; (8) relaxation, rest and sleep. These are described in the following paragraphs, with relevant student exemples. (1) Support from peers, friends, family and spouses. S16: I do a lot networking with friends so that there won’t be time where I will feel alone considering the amount of work. That is helping me in terms of not directly feeling the pressure. Forming study groups where not only the academic books are covered, but also the personal growth and sharing the challenging part of the program, as well as dealing with every stressful situation so that it won’t build up to something more hectic. S35. It’s so important to have coping mechanisms in order to get through this year. My support network (friends & family) helps me so much. Other coping mechanisms I use to survive are: walking on the beach, yoga practice, meditation, laughing and crying and medication (sometimes), as you just have to survive. (2) Planning and managing time to balance personal and work life S4: Group dynamics. I talk to my colleagues every time I feel overwhelmed and their encouragement keeps me strong (positive thinking). Also keeping in mind the very reason why I chose this profession keeps me grounded. Time management, regardless of the tight schedule I try to balance my time between recreation and school work. In terms of recreation I dance, exercise and sing. Keeping in contact with the previous students who managed to overcome helps me a lot. Another coping mechanism that helps me a lot is not competing and comparing myself against others in class but only with myself. This way my pace is monitored. Keeping friends outside psychology studies helps me a lot of distressing. S28. For me to avoid being swallowed by the crisis, time management has been the key. It has helped me manage without breaking down between full time classes, class presentations, case presentations, exams, orals, practicals and the worse part of it, having to complete and pass research the same year. Prioritizing helps being able to identify what comes first in my life, especially this year. Creating and maintaining a strong support system, family and friends, helps with external support when I feel like I am not coping. (3) Personal skills S3: I occasionally engage in physical training; but mostly my other commitments help me to put school work on ice, temporarily, and relieve my mind. I constantly debrief and check on how far I am on my journey to personal development. My special method is keep reassuring myself that I am not studying or learning for exam purposes but to grow professionally. S34. The best mechanism I have used and that always works for me, is reviewing my goals and dreams. We all want to complete our MA1 “alive”,

competent and fulfil or achieve these dreams. The goal is to be competent and complete on recorded time. Therefore motivation, self motivation, works for me. Secondly, study goals help as a support system that encourages or fosters the spirit of team work which is how psychology works in the field of practice. (4) Study skills S8: I have created more management skills in terms of time. Motivation is very important in this level of education planning as is proper decisionmaking. Study time tables are also important because we usually finish our classes late, so everyone has to have a day to day guide. S26. Perseverance, thinking of long term goals and future prospects, approaching learning and studies early before pressure builds up, time management, lots of praying, regular exercise (3 times weekly) and minimal rest (6 hours of sleep daily). (5) Exercise, sport and recreation S10: Provided that we attend classes for almost half of the day, I make sure that after attending I relax with my close friends talking or telling them about the day. After that I go to the gym (everyday) to freshen myself up. On Fridays it’s a stress free day. After attending, I socialize with my friends and I spend most of my Fridays at a sports bar in town or at the campus tavern if I have not enough resources. I dedicate my Saturdays sleeping and waking up only to read a newspaper. On Sundays as well I read Sunday Times for half a day, then prepare for commitment for the next day and for the rest the week. S17: I give myself time to relax and take one step at a time. I do physical exercises to keep my body active as well as my mind alert. I communicate with my colleagues and share the experience, which helps at motivating one another. (6) Personal therapy or counselling S15: I usually go for therapy in Richards Bay. I sleep in my room. Go to church, sometimes. Attending prayers every morning reduces the load and I go through the day’s work smoothly. Prayer usually removes the load off my shoulders. I speak to me friends about my workload and stress. I often visit friends about my workload and stress. I often visit friends just to get out of the environment (cause I am on campus). I travel (which sort of relaxes me) to their homes. S39. I attend therapy every week. I go to church on Sundays. I make sure I make time once a week to go out with my friends. I have a small peer group with my colleagues. (7) Spiritual and religious activities S9: Prayer- lots of it! God is my source of strength and without HIM I truly believe I couldn’t survive. I am a Christian. Listening to gospel music always soothes me. Having quiet time, being away from people and being still for

fifteen minutes is an amazing energy booster. My family (mom and sister and dad) have been tremendously supportive and keep me grounded. Their advice, concern and frequent phone calls (esp. mom and sis) have been amazing. Aerobics (exercise) releases a lot of pent up frustration. S46. I regard myself as a spiritual person. So I read the holy book just to get in touch with my essential being. I also enjoy spiritual practices such as meditation after a long day of doing my academic work. This calms me down and I feel revitalised afterwards. Positive self-talk also helps me a lot because it creates an expectation for good results after a lot of work. (8) Relaxation, rest and sleep. S1: I have a healthy diet and try my best to get sufficient rest/sleep. I practice yoga and exercise regularly. I try to follow a structured program and to manage my time efficiently. Talking to my colleagues, being able to relate experiences of the course has also assisted me. S43. Relaxing, reflecting, re-planning, taking time off to unwind and think about things, positive self-affirmations. Discussion The resilience and coping themes and student exemples are instructive with regard to both their integrity and diversity. At the same time as being an integrated whole, with resilience experiences merging into coping mechanisms, the interrelated themes and individual examples illuminate distinct experiential dimensions of resilience and coping with the first year of professional masters degree studies. As illustrated by the individual student examples, the resilience experiences fall into a sequential pattern of struggle, which is completely overwhelming (S27) or becomes manageable (S4) through personal resilience (S38, S46), life experiences (S33, S35), study experiences (S13, S17). The variety of coping mechanisms include support from peers, family, friends and spouses (S16, S35), planning and managing time to balance personal and work life (S4, S28), personal skills (S3, S34), study skills (S8, S26), exercise sport and recreation (S10, S17), personal therapy or counselling (S15, S39) spiritual and religious activities (S9, S46), relaxation, rest and sleep (S1, S43). The value of this longitudinal, phenomenological study lies in the insight it affords into the resilience and coping experiences of professional master degree psychology students. Similar to other studies with professional groups of nurses, (Taylor & Reyes, 2012), and medical doctors (Ahmed, Kameshwari, Mathew, Ashok, Shaikh & Muttappallymyalil, 2011), as well as technikon students (Cloete & Ballard , 2011), the present study found that resilience experiences were generally related to positive adaptation from struggles involving coping, health and performance. With reference to the special context of professional masters degree studies in psychology, it satisfied the recommendations of reviews for further investigation of cultural and contextual aspects of resilience (Herman, Stewart, Diaz-Granados, Berger, Jackson & Yuen, 2011; Theron & Theron, 2010).

This research complements previous quantitative research, which focussed on the selection and examination of masters students (Pillay & Edwards, 2004; Edwards & Pillay, 2006). The longitudinal nature and qualitative phenomenological approach affords insight into the nature of student course experiences over an expended period of five years. Student experiences over the years seem to have been very similar, providing some evidence for such qualitative research criteria as dependability and trustworthiness. Although all students were from the same university, from a heuristic phenomenological perspective, their individual and collective experiences also resonated faithfully with the individual and masters’ group experiences of the present authors, all of whom were involved in masters degree studies in psychology at other universities, indicating some quality of transferability of these experiences. Professional psychology masters degrees studies require students to complete research dissertations, which count for fifty percent of the course requirements in the present program. This qualitative study complements previous quantitative research undertaken by students into family resilience. These projects adopted a community psychological, multi-cultural, counselling approach to promoting family resilience in local Indian, Zulu and Swazi families in which a member had died (Harakrajh, 2006: Mbizana, 2007; Ngometulu, 2007). Qualitative findings included similar perceived family resilience patterns of inner strength, family support, spirituality and community support (Edwards, 2012a). The professional psychology masters program is an ideal context from which to research resilience and coping experiences as it introduces personal and work related risk factors which induce vulnerability factors which require protective factors for positive adaptation. Working with 427 male USA army soldiers, Hammermeister, Pickering, McGraw and Ohlsen (2012) have suggested that sport related psychological skill factors may play a role in the development of perceived psychological resilience, which, in turn, mediates post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This also appeared to be the case in the present study, with such skills as goal setting, motivation, visualization and concentration featuring prominently. Such sport related, psychological skills are naturally occurring, daily utilized, improvable techniques (Edwards & Edwards, 2007), which have been employed previously in the professional masters program (Edwards, 2012b). The present findings indicate that students will benefit through further comprehensive psychological skills instruction. Conclusion The purpose of this longitudinal, qualitative, phenomenological study was to investigate how first year professional psychology master students experienced resiliency in relation to their program and what specific coping mechanism they used to manage the workload. Findings revealed four main resilience themes of struggle experiences, personal resilience experiences, life management experiences and study experiences. There were eight overlapping coping themes involving support from peers, friends, family and spouses; time management; personal skills; study skills; exercise, sport and recreation; personal therapy; spiritual and religious activities; and rest and relaxation. Student experiences over the years seem to have been very similar, providing some evidence for such qualitative research criteria of dependability and trustworthiness. The applicability and value of the findings are discussed in relation to other local and international studies.

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