Dr Mark Burgess

​​​​​​​Background and aims: Retroactive jealousy is an unhealthy interest in a partner’s romantic/sexual history that has a detrimental effect on sufferers and relationships. Significant numbers of people seek therapeutic help for retroactive jealousy each year, but no research has used their lived experiences to identify potential therapeutic interventions. That was the aim of this research. 

Methods: Seven adults (21 – 43 years) who had sought help for retroactive jealousy were interviewed about their experiences. Participants’ accounts were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis and findings were used to identify potential therapeutic interventions. 

Findings: Three main themes represented participants’ experiences. Fears threaten hope and security involved negative self-comparisons with past rivals, a sense of one’s partner and the relationship losing value and of feeling wronged. Feeling compelled to know about the past involved one’s mind as a creative generator of distress and feeling compelled to seek reassurance but making things worse. Feeling split and out of control involved feeling like a devil was on one’s shoulder and having retroactive jealousy as a constant background to relational life.

Implications: Therapeutic guidance for change and growth can be directed at participants’ desires to forge a special romantic relationship, to achieve a more stable sense of self, and to act consistently with their underlying values and not in response to their visceral fears. We offer suggestions for psychoeducation regarding characteristics of healthy relationships, for working to move from insecure to secure responses, and for integrating cognitive defusion and implementation intentions to enhance agency.

Keywords: psychoeducation; sound relationship house; insecure attachments; cognitive defusion, implementation intentions

Evidence suggests that UK veterans are seen as victims with a consequent elevation of concern for their perceived mental health needs. The present study examined sociodemographic factors that contribute to victimising conceptualisations of British Army Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Participants (N=234) provided three word-associations to “British Army Iraq Veteran” and “British Army Afghanistan Veteran” and answered sociodemographic questions. A Multiple Linear Regression outlines that low national pride, opposition towards the missions and higher levels of education predict elevated levels of victimizing word-associations. Narrative accounts from 21 interviewed UK participants suggest that participants who did not perceive the recent conflicts as legitimate conceptualise veterans as passive, naïve actors who had to submit to the anthropomorphic agency of the government. This allowed holding overtly appreciative though belittling attitudes towards veterans, while opposing the missions. To dissociate veterans from victimizing perceptions, better knowledge about service and justifications for deployments need to be provided.

Evidence suggests that most of the UK public appreciate currently serving UK Armed Forces personnel but are less positive in their beliefs about veterans. This research examined the social representations held by civilian participants of UK veterans and serving soldiers to understand why veterans may be seen more negatively. An open-ended word-association task was completed by 234 UK participants where they were asked to provide three initial responses to the words ‘Veteran’ and ‘Soldier’ and to evaluate their responses in accordance to prototypicality. The 1404 resultant associations were grouped into 14 thematic clusters. Using the Hierarchical Evocation Method, the results suggest ‘Heroizing Associations’ to be a defining core-element for ‘Soldier’ and ‘Veteran’ but ‘Victimizing Associations’ to be an element only for ‘Veteran’. Principal Component Analyses suggest ‘Victimizing Associations’ are related to war and deindividuated associations; ‘Heroizing Associations’ are related to characterizations of the veteran’s personality. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Previous research has shown that British public perception of veterans can be negative and erroneous. Surveys, for example, indicate that veterans are characterized as skilled and valorous individuals but also as suffering from ill-health, unemployment and homelessness. To investigate how these beliefs may form, the present study examines the public dimension of knowledge by analyzing depictions of veterans in the media. A total of 335 newspaper articles that represent UK veterans were downloaded from Google News and UKPressonline. After the articles were classified with a content analysis, chi-squared tests were conducted to understand how the representation of veterans may be related to the political affiliations of news agencies
and by newspaper format. The results suggest that UK veterans are predominantly represented in both heroic and victimizing contexts. While political affiliation did not affect the representation of veterans significantly, newspaper format did, with broadsheet newspapers emphasizing victimized contexts and local and international newspapers focusing on heroic contexts. Tabloids are a symbolic middle ground between broadsheet, international and local formats. In conclusion, broadsheet newspapers may express sociocultural scrutiny towards the ways in which veterans are treated while local and international newspapers may focus on stereotypical representations of heroic British military actions that veterans may symbolize. Implications and conclusions are discussed.

Previous research outlines a relationship between religiosity and increased mental and physical wellbeing. However, to date findings from quantitative and qualitative research do not offer an unambiguous explanation for this relationship. The study addresses this gap in knowledge by examining underlying identity construction processes in relation to religiosity and wellbeing in the light of Identity Process Theory (Breakwell, 1986, 2001, 2010). Eight Christian converts from different deep-faith groups were recruited via purposive and modified snowball sampling. Detailed descriptions of first-hand experiences were collected by biographic-narrative interviews and analysed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings suggest that religious elements are integrated into identity content as these respond to a set of motivational principles of identity construction. In doing so, religious elements in identity content contribute to the avoidance of identity threat and to the maintenance of a positive identity structure. The adoption of health-promoting behaviours that relate to the application of beliefs (i.e. practice forgiveness, love oneself and the other, stopping excessive drinking) are consequences thereof and improve mental and physical wellbeing. In conclusion, the relationship between religiosity and wellbeing may be explained by the way in that religious elements in identity impact on identity maintenance process.

Objectives: Government guidelines aim to promote sensible alcohol consumption but such advice is disconnected from people’s lived experiences. This research investigated how people construct personal thresholds of ‘too much’ alcohol. 

Design and measures: 150 drinkers completed an online survey (Mage=23.29(5.51); 64.7þmale). Participants were asked whether they had an intuitive sense of what constitutes too much alcohol. They wrote open-ended descriptions of how that threshold had been established and how it felt to approach/exceed it. These qualitative accounts were coded using thematic analysis and interpreted with an experiential theoretical framework. 

Results: Personal thresholds were based on previously experienced embodied states rather than guidelines, or health concerns. Describing the approach to their threshold, 75% of participants fell into two distinct groups. Group 1’s approach was an entirely negative (nausea/anxiety) and Group 2’s approach was an entirely positive, embodied experience (relaxed/pleasurable). These groups differed significantly in awareness of alcohol’s effects, agency and self-perceptions, but not on alcohol consumption. Exceeding their threshold was an entirely negative embodied experience for all.

Conclusion: These findings illustrate that people are guided by experientially grounded conceptions of consumption. Interventions could target different groups of drinker according to their embodied experience during the approach to ‘too much’ alcohol.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could play a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Much research has examined the practical barriers to large-scale BEV uptake, but very little has examined the psychological barriers. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the effects of stereotype threat on BEV drivers. This psychological predicament occurs when an individual imagines or experiences being judged in terms of negative stereotypes about their social group. Qualitative thematic analysis of interview data revealed three distinct stereotypes that the BEV drivers imagined or reported other people to hold: eccentric, low-status environmentalists; hypocritical, high status environmentalists; and geeky technophiles. With regard to the first and second stereotypes, drivers tended to use individualist defence strategies by downplaying their proenvironmental attitudes and dissociating themselves from the undesirable environmentalist groups. With regard to the third stereotype, they tended to use more constructive, group-level defence strategies by perceiving their BEV driver ingroup as superior on the innovative technology adopter dimension compared to their non-BEV driver outgroup. Suggestions are made for countering the psychological barrier of stereotype threat, such as promoting images of BEV drivers as future-shaping market leaders and treating them as members of an influential and desirable consumer group.

The UK government has made substantial investments in electric transport as a potential means of reducing CO2 emissions (DoECC, 2012). This paper investigates responses to recharging plug-in battery electric vehicles from the perspective of electric vehicle (EV) drivers. Drivers in the UK Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle trial (n = 135, 29% female, M = 47 years) completed questionnaires and were interviewed to assess their attitudes and experiences before they obtained their EV and after driving the EV for 3 months. The results demonstrated that drivers were positive about recharging – preferring it to ‘refuelling’ – and they became more relaxed over time about the frequency of recharging. Drivers managed without using a public charging infrastructure although such an infrastructure may be desirable to promote EV use. Finally, there was an interesting difference in drivers’ awareness of the environmental impact of driving and recharging an EV before and after the trial in relation to CO2 emissions and the energy cycle. The results are discussed in relation to the implications for developing the future EV market.

This research investigates flow experiences and explores meaning construction for artistic practices that differ in haptic nature. In addition to the phenomenological analysis of interviews, videos of artistic practice and practice-based research (in which participants instruct the researcher in their primary techniques) were employed to obtain both retrospective and real-time records of the physicality of artistic practice. Drawing on authors who emphasise the automatisation of actions in flow (Dietriche, 2004; Spinelli, 2005) and heightened body awareness (Pagis, 2009) flow is reconceptualised in non-representational terms as optimal precognitive engagement with the world. In this light meaning in flow results not from bringing order to the mind as Csikszentmihalyi (2002) proposed, but through its embodied construction in activity. Analyses revealed that the sources of enjoyment and meaning, the relationship between artist, tools and artwork, and the nature and extent of self-differentiation differ between artists who work in two (2D) and three (3D) dimensions, and whose physical actions differ in the production of their artwork. 2D artists derive enjoyment from their creative process and meaning from capturing an atmosphere or place, and attribute artistic control to their artwork. 3D artists derive more enjoyment from the product of their artistic activity and meaning from the recreation of the self in material form, and do not attribute artistic control to the artwork. Consequently, embodied physicality of activity appears fundamental to similarities in flow experiences and meaning-making: accounts of flow and the meanings generated in activity differ between activities that differ in their haptic or performative nature but are similar among haptically similar activities.

We investigated whether increases in tattooing rates and designs have eradicated or altered traditional delinquent tattooing stereotypes. We tested the perceived suitability of tattooed and non-tattooed individuals for 2 different jobs. Affective evaluations mediated judgments of job suitability, with those displaying traditional tattoos being rated as less suitable for employment than those who were not tattooed and those displaying contemporary tattoos. Those with a contemporary tattoo were judged in the same manner as those who were not tattooed (even by observers who neither had a tattoo nor were considering getting one). These results suggest that the savage associations of tattooing continue for some, but suggest that for other tattoo enthusiasts, a new stereotype has emerged reflecting a shift toward respectability.

Northern Ireland has endured a history of violence since its inception in 1922. The last forty years have been characterised by sustained political conflict and a fledging peace process. We conducted a series of interviews with individuals who had used violence to pursue political goals during the conflict. This article focuses on the processes involved in their joining of paramilitary groups and engaging in violent actions. The participants’ accounts resonate with factors that 

other researchers have identified as being antecedent to paramilitary membership, such as having the support of the immediate community (e.g., Crawford 2003; Silke 2003). However, the rational decisions that are revealed in these accounts also show that participants engaged in rational decision making as 

opposed to being mindlessly provoked into membership in response to an environmental stimulus. These results highlight the degree to which individuals bear, and accept, personal responsibility for joining a paramilitary group (as opposed to membership simply being stimulated by uncontrollable dispositional or situational forces). 

Northern Ireland has endured a history of violence since its inception in 1922. The last forty years have been characterised by sustained political conflict and a fledging peace process. We conducted a series of interviews with individuals who had used violence to pursue political goals during the conflict. This article focuses on the processes involved in their joining of paramilitary groups and engaging in violent actions. The participants’ accounts resonate with factors that other researchers have identified as being antecedent to paramilitary membership, such as having the support of the immediate community (e.g., Crawford 2003; Silke 2003). However, the rational decisions that are revealed in these accounts also show that participants engaged in rational decision making as  opposed to being mindlessly provoked into membership in response to an environmental stimulus. These results highlight the degree to which individuals bear, and accept, personal responsibility for joining a paramilitary group (as opposed to membership simply being stimulated by uncontrollable dispositional or situational forces).