Paula Nicolson
Biographic Data
| ID | 194306 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paula Nicolson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paula |
| FAMILY NAME | Nicolson |
| SIGNATURE | NICOLSON P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 167 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Genealogy, Psychology and Therapy: Uncovering Trauma
Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care
How do social workers understand and respond to domestic violence and relate this to organizational policy and practice
This study explores British social workers’ abilities to recognize incidents of interpersonal violence, how much domestic violence training social workers typically receive, and how awareness of organizational policies and practice experiences impact workers’ attitudes about domestic violence. Based on our findings we suggest that traditional higher education teaching methods of lecture and seminar combined with a service-learning component to co…
Research Ethics in Accessing Hospital Staff and Securing Informed Consent
Qualitative researchers cannot rely on research ethics to be a static practice. In this article we discuss how observation of guidelines for inquiry and international agreements on the dignity of health care research are not sufficient on their own to ensure that the challenges inherent in the everyday management of a project are regulated. We focus in particular on ethics in accessing participants and the construction of informed consent. During…
The next generation of pregnant women: More Freedom in the Public Sphere or Just an Illusion
This article argues that, withstanding the liberating effects of the women's movement, the contraceptive revolution, the equal opportunities revolution, and the increase in equal access to information – which have all helped to increase women's mobility within society – is a serendipitous form of societal policing of women's actions that may be linked to ongoing patriarchal views. We attempt to explain our analysis by reviewing historical develop…
Constructions of Pregnant and Postnatal Embodiment across Three Generations: Mothers’, Daughters’ and Others’ Experiences of the Transition to Motherhood
The academic study of the 'body' has come to occupy the foreground over the past two decades and the differential influences of physical and social worlds particularly upon body management practices have become fundamental to the 21st-century 'project' of the body. In this article we explore three generations of women's accounts of living in/with a pregnant and postnatal body which is now both visible and 'public' as women 'leave' the home for wo…
I don't think it was such an issue back then’: Changing experiences of pregnancy across two generations of women in south-east England
Based upon in-depth interviews with recent mothers and their own mothers in London, England, this article uses a cross-generational perspective to examine the changing experiences/perceptions of pregnancy over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Pregnancy is a biological process, but exists within social, economic, political and cultural realms and is both spatially and temporally located. In this article we argue that advances in …
Memories of Precilla Y.L. Choi
Is domestic violence a gender issue? Views from a British city1
Domestic violence involves the abuse, whether emotional, physical, sexual and/or economic, of one or more family (or ex‐family) members by another family member within the home or wider domestic context. It is typically associated with increasing entrapment, injury, medical complaints, psycho‐social problems and (sometimes) unsuccessful help‐seeking. Research evidence demonstrates that domestic abuse is prolific, prolonged, impacts physically, em…
I. Biological Politics: Challenging Man-made Science
I. Biological Politics: Challenging Man-made Science
It was strange, although in retrospect unsurprising, to realize that I was not alone in being moved by Janet Sayers’ Biological Politics: Feminist and Anti-Feminist Perspectives (BP). I discovered it in an independent bookshop in north London. This was shortly after its publication and in the early days of working on my PhD on postnatal depression. I had neither seen nor read anything like it before. BP gave a credence and stimulus to some of the…
Gender, Power, and Organisation: A Psychological Perspective
What is 'normal' about women's (hetero)sexual desire and orgasm: A Report of an in-Depth Interview Study
The Meaning of 'Satisfaction' for People with Dermatological Problems: Reassessing Approaches to Qualitative Health Psychology Research
A qualitative study was undertaken to explore descriptions of satisfaction with health care, with 30 dermatology patients. The relevance and usefulness of the approach chosen to analyse the data-interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was also retrospectively evaluated. The findings suggest that 'satisfaction' is a complex and fluid construct, which is defined, redefined and re-evaluated by participants throughout the interview process. IP…
The Psychosocial Impact of Spasticityrelated Problems for People with Multiple Sclerosis: A Focus Group Study
This focus group, qualitative study ( N = 18) reports the psychosocial impact, specifically, of spasticity symptoms on a sample of people with MS (multiple sclerosis). MS, a chronic disabling disease which attacks the central nervous system, currently affects about 100,000 people in the UK and estimates indicate that worldwide prevalence varies from around 10 to 250 per 100,000. The cause remains unknown and the rate of disease progression varies…
The social construction of racism: The case of second generation Bangladeshis
This paper examines the ways in which a group of middle class second generation Bangladeshi adults construct and account for their experiences of racism. Using a discursive analysis of tape recorded conversations, the study shows how various discursive practices construct racism in participant's descriptions of racist experiences, and how these constructions serve particular functions. For instance, the discourses of an ‘improved present’ and ‘ra…
I'm not bad for my age’: The meaning of body size and eating in the lives of older women
Empirical research on women's feelings about their body size has traditionally focused on adolescents and young adults and has been carried out within the framework of experimental social psychology. This article examines the subjective meanings of body size for a sample of 12 women aged between 63 and 75 years via an analysis of in-depth interview data. The findings suggest that body size has a complexity of contradictory meanings for older wome…
Post-Natal Depression: Psychology, Science and the Transition to Motherhood
Post-Natal Depression challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a 'happy mother'. It provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations of 'post natal depression' by supplying a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth. Paula Nicolson argues that, far from it being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, it is a normal, healthy response to a serie…
Exploring the Interface: Applications of Feminist Theory, Practice and Research
V. Social Psychology: Theory
The ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women in East London
This study examined differences between the ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women giving birth in East London, and sources of variability in Asian women's accounts. In line with the findings of previous research, Asian women's ideas about diet in pregnancy, the gender of their children and postnatal care (e.g. the need for rest and recovery, and restrictions on their activities) were influenced by cultural…
The menstrual cycle, science and femininity: Assumptions underlying menstrual cycle research
Asian Women's Ethnic Identity: The Impact of Gender and Context in the Accounts of Women Bringing Up Children in East London
This study examines the ways in which a group of women of Asian origin or descent define and discuss aspects of ethnicity and ethnic identity. Thirty-two Asian women of different religious and cultural backgrounds who were bringing up young children in East London were interviewed by an Asian psychologist. As part of a more extensive interview about childbirth, child care and child rearing, women were asked about their ethnic identity. Their acco…
The Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care
The Psychology of Women’s Health and Health Care
The psychology of women's health is an area traditionally controlled by male-orientated scientists, psychologists and doctors. Women by definition have been unquestioningly seen and treated as deviant
What is 'normal' about women's (hetero)sexual desire and orgasm: A Report of an in-Depth Interview Study
Constructions of Pregnant and Postnatal Embodiment across Three Generations: Mothers’, Daughters’ and Others’ Experiences of the Transition to Motherhood
The academic study of the 'body' has come to occupy the foreground over the past two decades and the differential influences of physical and social worlds particularly upon body management practices have become fundamental to the 21st-century 'project' of the body. In this article we explore three generations of women's accounts of living in/with a pregnant and postnatal body which is now both visible and 'public' as women 'leave' the home for wo…
The Meaning of 'Satisfaction' for People with Dermatological Problems: Reassessing Approaches to Qualitative Health Psychology Research
A qualitative study was undertaken to explore descriptions of satisfaction with health care, with 30 dermatology patients. The relevance and usefulness of the approach chosen to analyse the data-interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was also retrospectively evaluated. The findings suggest that 'satisfaction' is a complex and fluid construct, which is defined, redefined and re-evaluated by participants throughout the interview process. IP…
I'm not bad for my age’: The meaning of body size and eating in the lives of older women
Empirical research on women's feelings about their body size has traditionally focused on adolescents and young adults and has been carried out within the framework of experimental social psychology. This article examines the subjective meanings of body size for a sample of 12 women aged between 63 and 75 years via an analysis of in-depth interview data. The findings suggest that body size has a complexity of contradictory meanings for older wome…
I don't think it was such an issue back then’: Changing experiences of pregnancy across two generations of women in south-east England
Based upon in-depth interviews with recent mothers and their own mothers in London, England, this article uses a cross-generational perspective to examine the changing experiences/perceptions of pregnancy over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Pregnancy is a biological process, but exists within social, economic, political and cultural realms and is both spatially and temporally located. In this article we argue that advances in …
Asian Women's Ethnic Identity: The Impact of Gender and Context in the Accounts of Women Bringing Up Children in East London
This study examines the ways in which a group of women of Asian origin or descent define and discuss aspects of ethnicity and ethnic identity. Thirty-two Asian women of different religious and cultural backgrounds who were bringing up young children in East London were interviewed by an Asian psychologist. As part of a more extensive interview about childbirth, child care and child rearing, women were asked about their ethnic identity. Their acco…
How do social workers understand and respond to domestic violence and relate this to organizational policy and practice
This study explores British social workers’ abilities to recognize incidents of interpersonal violence, how much domestic violence training social workers typically receive, and how awareness of organizational policies and practice experiences impact workers’ attitudes about domestic violence. Based on our findings we suggest that traditional higher education teaching methods of lecture and seminar combined with a service-learning component to co…
The menstrual cycle, science and femininity: Assumptions underlying menstrual cycle research
The Psychosocial Impact of Spasticityrelated Problems for People with Multiple Sclerosis: A Focus Group Study
This focus group, qualitative study ( N = 18) reports the psychosocial impact, specifically, of spasticity symptoms on a sample of people with MS (multiple sclerosis). MS, a chronic disabling disease which attacks the central nervous system, currently affects about 100,000 people in the UK and estimates indicate that worldwide prevalence varies from around 10 to 250 per 100,000. The cause remains unknown and the rate of disease progression varies…
The ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women in East London
This study examined differences between the ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women giving birth in East London, and sources of variability in Asian women's accounts. In line with the findings of previous research, Asian women's ideas about diet in pregnancy, the gender of their children and postnatal care (e.g. the need for rest and recovery, and restrictions on their activities) were influenced by cultural…
The next generation of pregnant women: More Freedom in the Public Sphere or Just an Illusion
This article argues that, withstanding the liberating effects of the women's movement, the contraceptive revolution, the equal opportunities revolution, and the increase in equal access to information – which have all helped to increase women's mobility within society – is a serendipitous form of societal policing of women's actions that may be linked to ongoing patriarchal views. We attempt to explain our analysis by reviewing historical develop…
Research Ethics in Accessing Hospital Staff and Securing Informed Consent
Qualitative researchers cannot rely on research ethics to be a static practice. In this article we discuss how observation of guidelines for inquiry and international agreements on the dignity of health care research are not sufficient on their own to ensure that the challenges inherent in the everyday management of a project are regulated. We focus in particular on ethics in accessing participants and the construction of informed consent. During…
Is domestic violence a gender issue? Views from a British city1
Domestic violence involves the abuse, whether emotional, physical, sexual and/or economic, of one or more family (or ex‐family) members by another family member within the home or wider domestic context. It is typically associated with increasing entrapment, injury, medical complaints, psycho‐social problems and (sometimes) unsuccessful help‐seeking. Research evidence demonstrates that domestic abuse is prolific, prolonged, impacts physically, em…
Explanations of post natal depression: Structuring knowledge of female psychology
(1991). Explanations of post natal depression: Structuring knowledge of female psychology. Research on Language and Social Interaction: Vol. 25, No. 1-4, pp. 75-96
Explanations of post natal depression: Structuring knowledge of female psychology
(1991). Explanations of post natal depression: Structuring knowledge of female psychology. Research on Language and Social Interaction: Vol. 25, No. 1-4, pp. 75-96
The Psychology of Women’s Health and Health Care
The psychology of women's health is an area traditionally controlled by male-orientated scientists, psychologists and doctors. Women by definition have been unquestioningly seen and treated as deviant
The Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care
Asian Women's Ethnic Identity: The Impact of Gender and Context in the Accounts of Women Bringing Up Children in East London
This study examines the ways in which a group of women of Asian origin or descent define and discuss aspects of ethnicity and ethnic identity. Thirty-two Asian women of different religious and cultural backgrounds who were bringing up young children in East London were interviewed by an Asian psychologist. As part of a more extensive interview about childbirth, child care and child rearing, women were asked about their ethnic identity. Their acco…
The ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women in East London
This study examined differences between the ideas and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Asian and non‐Asian women giving birth in East London, and sources of variability in Asian women's accounts. In line with the findings of previous research, Asian women's ideas about diet in pregnancy, the gender of their children and postnatal care (e.g. the need for rest and recovery, and restrictions on their activities) were influenced by cultural…
The menstrual cycle, science and femininity: Assumptions underlying menstrual cycle research
Exploring the Interface: Applications of Feminist Theory, Practice and Research
V. Social Psychology: Theory
Post-Natal Depression: Psychology, Science and the Transition to Motherhood
Post-Natal Depression challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a 'happy mother'. It provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations of 'post natal depression' by supplying a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth. Paula Nicolson argues that, far from it being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, it is a normal, healthy response to a serie…
I'm not bad for my age’: The meaning of body size and eating in the lives of older women
Empirical research on women's feelings about their body size has traditionally focused on adolescents and young adults and has been carried out within the framework of experimental social psychology. This article examines the subjective meanings of body size for a sample of 12 women aged between 63 and 75 years via an analysis of in-depth interview data. The findings suggest that body size has a complexity of contradictory meanings for older wome…
The social construction of racism: The case of second generation Bangladeshis
This paper examines the ways in which a group of middle class second generation Bangladeshi adults construct and account for their experiences of racism. Using a discursive analysis of tape recorded conversations, the study shows how various discursive practices construct racism in participant's descriptions of racist experiences, and how these constructions serve particular functions. For instance, the discourses of an ‘improved present’ and ‘ra…
The Psychosocial Impact of Spasticityrelated Problems for People with Multiple Sclerosis: A Focus Group Study
This focus group, qualitative study ( N = 18) reports the psychosocial impact, specifically, of spasticity symptoms on a sample of people with MS (multiple sclerosis). MS, a chronic disabling disease which attacks the central nervous system, currently affects about 100,000 people in the UK and estimates indicate that worldwide prevalence varies from around 10 to 250 per 100,000. The cause remains unknown and the rate of disease progression varies…
The Meaning of 'Satisfaction' for People with Dermatological Problems: Reassessing Approaches to Qualitative Health Psychology Research
A qualitative study was undertaken to explore descriptions of satisfaction with health care, with 30 dermatology patients. The relevance and usefulness of the approach chosen to analyse the data-interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was also retrospectively evaluated. The findings suggest that 'satisfaction' is a complex and fluid construct, which is defined, redefined and re-evaluated by participants throughout the interview process. IP…
Gender, Power, and Organisation: A Psychological Perspective
What is 'normal' about women's (hetero)sexual desire and orgasm: A Report of an in-Depth Interview Study
Is domestic violence a gender issue? Views from a British city1
Domestic violence involves the abuse, whether emotional, physical, sexual and/or economic, of one or more family (or ex‐family) members by another family member within the home or wider domestic context. It is typically associated with increasing entrapment, injury, medical complaints, psycho‐social problems and (sometimes) unsuccessful help‐seeking. Research evidence demonstrates that domestic abuse is prolific, prolonged, impacts physically, em…
I. Biological Politics: Challenging Man-made Science
I. Biological Politics: Challenging Man-made Science
It was strange, although in retrospect unsurprising, to realize that I was not alone in being moved by Janet Sayers’ Biological Politics: Feminist and Anti-Feminist Perspectives (BP). I discovered it in an independent bookshop in north London. This was shortly after its publication and in the early days of working on my PhD on postnatal depression. I had neither seen nor read anything like it before. BP gave a credence and stimulus to some of the…
Memories of Precilla Y.L. Choi
I don't think it was such an issue back then’: Changing experiences of pregnancy across two generations of women in south-east England
Based upon in-depth interviews with recent mothers and their own mothers in London, England, this article uses a cross-generational perspective to examine the changing experiences/perceptions of pregnancy over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Pregnancy is a biological process, but exists within social, economic, political and cultural realms and is both spatially and temporally located. In this article we argue that advances in …
Constructions of Pregnant and Postnatal Embodiment across Three Generations: Mothers’, Daughters’ and Others’ Experiences of the Transition to Motherhood
The academic study of the 'body' has come to occupy the foreground over the past two decades and the differential influences of physical and social worlds particularly upon body management practices have become fundamental to the 21st-century 'project' of the body. In this article we explore three generations of women's accounts of living in/with a pregnant and postnatal body which is now both visible and 'public' as women 'leave' the home for wo…
The next generation of pregnant women: More Freedom in the Public Sphere or Just an Illusion
This article argues that, withstanding the liberating effects of the women's movement, the contraceptive revolution, the equal opportunities revolution, and the increase in equal access to information – which have all helped to increase women's mobility within society – is a serendipitous form of societal policing of women's actions that may be linked to ongoing patriarchal views. We attempt to explain our analysis by reviewing historical develop…
How do social workers understand and respond to domestic violence and relate this to organizational policy and practice
This study explores British social workers’ abilities to recognize incidents of interpersonal violence, how much domestic violence training social workers typically receive, and how awareness of organizational policies and practice experiences impact workers’ attitudes about domestic violence. Based on our findings we suggest that traditional higher education teaching methods of lecture and seminar combined with a service-learning component to co…
Research Ethics in Accessing Hospital Staff and Securing Informed Consent
Qualitative researchers cannot rely on research ethics to be a static practice. In this article we discuss how observation of guidelines for inquiry and international agreements on the dignity of health care research are not sufficient on their own to ensure that the challenges inherent in the everyday management of a project are regulated. We focus in particular on ethics in accessing participants and the construction of informed consent. During…
Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care
Psychology (21 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Developmental psychology (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works)