Massey Documents by Type
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Item Perspectives on health and illness(Massey University, 2025-07-16) Morison T; Gibson A; Riley S; McGuigan KTaking a critical perspective, as we do in this book, involves going beyond the surface appearance of an idea or phenomenon to determine why it is the way it is (Baum, 2015). For (critically oriented) health psychology, this means scrutinising health-related issues through a lens that questions underlying assumptions, power dynamics, and social structures. It also means questioning our very understanding of the notion of health, which we frequently take for granted, and which is the focus of this chapter. The questions that may spring to mind are: What is the point of recognising and unpacking different, changing understandings of health and illness? And, Why is taking this critical perspective necessary or valuable? This chapter tackles these questions.Item Making sense of bodily experiences: Interpreting signs and symptoms(Massey University, 2025-07-16) Morison T; Gibson A; Riley SThis chapter is about how people make sense of the changes experienced in their bodies as an indication of illness. How do we know when a physical sensation is serious or just a fleeting discomfort? Deciding whether to seek medical care or ignore a symptom is a daily reality, but the process of interpreting bodily signals is far more complex than it might seem. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand symptom interpretation as more than a straightforward process. Instead, you will see it as a complex, socially negotiated act with significant implications for individual health, healthcare practices, and broader public health outcomes.Item Diagnosis as a social and political practice(Massey University, 2025-07-16) Morison T; Sarah RIn this chapter, we examine diagnosis not just as a process of labelling diseases, but as a practice that establishes a shared understanding of what constitutes sickness—an understanding shaped by values, norms, and biology, and imbued with significant social consequences (Jutel, 2024). We begin by asking, “What is diagnosis?”—exploring how naming and framing create diagnostic systems that often struggle with ambiguity. Next, we examine diagnosis as a social tool. In medical interactions, healthcare providers wield the “power to name,” raising questions: Who benefits from specific diagnoses? What role do they play in maintaining the status quo and, hence, social inequity? We also consider diagnosis in the context of medicalisation, whereby everyday experiences are reframed as medical issues through diagnostic classifications. We discuss the benefits, such as validation and care, and drawbacks, including stigma and oversimplification, associated with this practice.Item The unravelling of person-centred care: The value and necessity of analysing power relations in contraceptive services(SAGE Publications, 2025-04-30) Morison T; Macleod CI; Ndabul YGlobal research indicates ongoing challenges in delivering person-centred contraceptive care. Much of the contraceptive research investigates this issue using systems-focussed approaches to map institutional constraints (e.g. institutional or health system barriers to accessing contraception). The assumption underlying this research approach is that simply removing structural barriers can address issues and enhance contraceptive autonomy, but this is not the case. Our research shows how discursively constructed power relations undermine bodily integrity and contraceptive agency even as contraceptive providers endorse the principles of patient-centred care. Using a synthetic narrative/discourse approach to analyse provider interviews in South Africa and New Zealand, we draw on Foucauldian analytics of biopower to show how an idealised person-centred care narrative collapses under the weight of discourses of medicalised risk, protectionism, and biomedical expertise, signalling practices of power through confession, responsibilisation and surveillance. Our findings highlight an essential perspective frequently missing in systems-focussed research on contraceptive care: the crucial dimension of power and reproductive politics. Thus, we argue for the necessity of investigating this dimension, in addition to systemic challenges. Our work demonstrates the value of frameworks that illuminate power dynamics, such as the Foucauldian analytics of biopower we undertook. Expanding the range of research perspectives in contraceptive research can deepen understandings of how systems constraints and power relations together undermine relational person-centred contraceptive care.Item Extending sexual scripting theory through critical discursive psychology: An analytical approach to explore the performance of sexual identities.(SAGE Publications, 2024-09-23) Healy-Cullen S; Morison TSexual scripting theory, a widely used tool in sexuality research, was originally developed by Gagnon and Simon to illuminate the social nature of sexual practices and identity construction. Later, they sought to develop the theory further to align with a social constructionist perspective. However, vestiges of individualism and cognitivism haunt sexual scripting theory largely due to the use of the symbolic interactionist concept of performance. To address this, we draw on the performance–performativity approach in critical discursive psychology that develops the notion of performance from a discursive perspective and offers a way of extending sexual scripting theory that offers a truly social explication of sexual identity construction. We provide a practical illustration of this extended theorising, drawing on data from a project about young people’s online engagement with pornography. We demonstrate how developing the notion of sexual scripts as discursive resources that enable the performance of sexual identities allows us to illuminate the social and situated nature of identity construction. This framework enhances understanding of the process of sexual identity construction and provides a valuable tool for studying how broader sexual scripts that are sociohistorically specific provide a scaffolding for the ways an individual can construct sexual identities. Overall, this paper offers a valuable contribution to discursive scholarship in psychology by presenting a nuanced analytical framework that coheres with a constructionist, performative view of identity.Item Supporting Intellectually Disabled Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: A Qualitative Study With Support Workers in Aotearoa New Zealand(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-11-16) Bloom O; Morison TThis article presents findings from a qualitative study of support worker responses to intellectually disabled women’s sex and reproductive health. Drawing on reproductive justice theory, interviews with seven support workers from various disability service providers in New Zealand were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings point to the persistence of a sexual risk discourse, which undermines progressive perspectives, including the rights-based approach that is usually advocated for in sexual and reproductive health, and ultimately constrains intellectually disabled women’s sexual agency. The value of a reproductive justice framework for countering risk-oriented framings in favor of a social justice perspective that expands the notions of individual rights is discussed. The findings support a growing global evidence base and have implications for national and international policy and practice.Item Youth, Pornography, and Addiction: A Critical Review(Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2024-04) Healy-Cullen S; Taylor K; Morison TPurpose of Review: In this article, we dig more deeply into the assumptions underpinning common-sense understandings about youth “exposure” to pornography and the ostensible “effects” of this exposure, specifically “pornography addiction”. We trace the emergence of the notion of “pornography addiction”, highlighting how cultural conditions have allowed for its realisation as a socially recognisable and intelligible narrative. Recent Findings: Media effects research on the issue of youth “exposure” to pornography is not conclusive, nor is pornography addiction officially recognised as a diagnosable disorder. Moreover, an emerging body of multidisciplinary qualitative research, which, importantly, includes the perspectives and experiences of young people themselves, raises questions about some of the assumptions and conclusions of effects-focused research. Summary: Despite inconclusive and contrasting findings, the social narrative of pornography addiction persists both within and beyond academe. We make sense of this persistence in relation to the broader problematisation of youth sexuality, which includes unease and moral objection to young people viewing pornography. It is important to recognise the broader socio-cultural systems supporting the cultural narrative of pornography addiction, and the social functions that this narrative serves, that is, the need for adult intervention into the sexual lives of youth.Item Performing smart sexual selves: A sexual scripting analysis of youth talk about internet pornography(SAGE Publications, 2023-01-22) Healy-Cullen S; Morison T; Taylor J; Taylor KIn this article, we explore young New Zealanders’ use of sexual scripts in talk about Internet pornography (IP) to perform ‘smart’ sexual selves. Using sexual scripting theory, as developed by feminist discursive psychologists, our analysis of interview data generated with 10 youth (aged 16–18 years) highlights two commonly constructed sexual identities across youth talk; (i) the proficient Internet pornography user, and (ii) the astute Internet pornography viewer. The way these young people talk about portrayals of sexuality and gender in IP – and their ability to discern its artifice – suggests they are savvy consumers who are capable of using IP as a cultural resource (e.g. for learning, entertainment) while at the same time acknowledging it as a flawed representation of sex and sexuality. We discuss the implications of our findings for strengths-based sexuality education that supports sexual agency, proposing a justice-orientated approach grounded in the notion of ethical sexual citizenship.Item Women’s perspectives on long-acting reversible contraception: a critical scoping review of qualitative research(Taylor and Francis Group LLC, 2021-05-18) Morison T; Eagar DLong-acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) has significant promise both from a public health outlook and a social justice perspective. However, if women’s empowerment is to be supported, then perspectives and experiences of LARC must be considered. This scoping review assesses research about contraceptive users’ perspectives and experiences of contraceptive decision-making and practices. A content analysis was conducted to identify research trends in qualitative studies of contraceptive-user perspectives (n = 54), located by means of a systematic search. Interpreting findings through a reproductive justice lens, three main limitations in the scholarship were identified, viz., (1) an instrumentalist, individual-level focus; (2) a lack of consideration for diverse perspectives; and (3) an uncritical focus on young women. While the small body of qualitative research on LARC offers some valuable insights, when viewed from a sexual and reproductive justice perspective, it is not sufficiently user-centered or grounded within the reproductive politics surrounding contraceptive care and provision. Research is needed that draws on appropriate social theory; widens its focus beyond dominant groups; and is cognizant of the multi-level power relations surrounding LARC. Such work provides a nuanced picture of the complex social and contextual factors at play and inform person-centered approaches in sexual and reproductive health policy and programming.Item Patient-provider power relations in counselling on long-acting reversible contraception: a discursive study of provider perspectives(Taylor and Francis Group, 2022-05-06) Morison TContraceptive providers play an essential role in shaping contraceptive decision-making and care, with the potential to constrain patients' agency. This is a particular concern given the rising hegemony of Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) and growing evidence of negative patient experiences of LARC promotion and provision. Despite this evidence, little research has considered health providers' perspectives. Drawing on interviews with 22 contraceptive health providers in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper explored their professional identity construction, focusing on meaning-making in instances of conflict between providers' and patients' priorities and agendas. Guided by feminist poststructuralist theory, the discursive analysis highlights common rhetorical strategies used by participants to (1) justify the use of coercive practices to encourage LARC uptake, and (2) in turn, negotiate positive identities. Findings show how participants grapple with the reproductive politics structuring contraceptive care, including established understandings of the purpose of (long-acting) contraception and contraceptive providers' roles vis-à-vis provision and promotion. The findings point to limitations on contraceptive agency, despite the unanimous endorsement of rights-based voluntary care. Extending the critical literature on LARC and contributing to the under-researched area of contraceptive coercion and agency, the findings of this study have important implications for the delivery of contraceptive care.
