Janette Graetz Simmonds
Biographic Data
| ID | 913515 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Janette Graetz Simmonds |
| GIVEN NAMES | Janette Graetz |
| FAMILY NAME | Simmonds |
| SIGNATURE | SIMMONDS J G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0259-4095 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Teddy’s Loquats
In this narrative poem, the author reflects on the passing of a personal childhood era in seeking food for lunch on school days
The Role of Animal Companions in the Bereavement Experiences of Australian Lesbians and Gay Men
All too often, humans who experience the death of a partner are directed towards other humans for support, ignoring the important role that animal companions play in the lives of many humans. For lesbians and gay men specifically - whose grief may be disenfranchised - animal companions may play a particularly important role. This paper reports on a secondary analysis of interviews with 10 Australian lesbians or gay men who had lost a partner due …
Brother’s Room
The memory of inhabiting the room of a departed brother is explored in this narrative poem
The Garden, Grief, and All That Is
In this narrative poem, the author explores the experience of grief and growth
Whine and dust
As collaborators from different nationalities, genders, cultural backgrounds, occupations and age cohorts, in this article we present an account of our art-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project employed art practice as a way to deal with the noxious effects of isolation on our mental health and well-being during the many prolonged lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia. With reference to Warren Lett’s concept of companioning, in our…
Exploring Counsellors’ Understanding and Practice of Multicultural Counselling in Malaysia
Background and Purpose: In order to make counselling meaningful and culturally relevant, it is essential for counsellors to have a practical counselling model that is context-specific and matches the needs and values of the population of that specific culture. Hence, the present research aims to explore professional counsellors’ understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia. Methodology: This study adopted a complementarity …
So, Doctors, Let’s Rejoice in Our Life Sentence [Gaudeamus Igitur]
Taiko Drumming in the Sea of Japan (Travel Memory for Tiding-Over Times)
Field Student Blues
In this poem, the lived experience of disruption of a valued professional relationship and the reduction of the professional’s expertise when a field student observer enters the previously close dynamic, is illustrated
Grief in later life
Existing literature has identified that the death of a partner in later life is often accompanied by changes in the personal circumstances of the bereaved. However, the consequences following the death of a same-gender partner have attracted limited research attention. The present study aimed to investigate the consequent changes caused by the death of a same-gender partner in later life. Six gay men and four lesbians who had lost a same-gender p…
Professional Counsellors’ Perceptions and Experiences of Multicultural Counselling in Malaysia
Background and Purpose: The contemporary status of multicultural counselling field in Malaysia is ambiguous as there is limited research in this field. Even though Malaysia is deemed as a multicultural nation, there are still some issues and concerns with regards to the understanding and practice of multicultural counselling. Hence, the present research aims to: (a) explore the definitions of the term ‘multicultural counselling’ as perceived by p…
Contemplating spiritual experience
In this paper, ways of contemplating and accommodating the unfamiliar, especially the “other” of spiritual experience, are considered. Some concepts from psychoanalysis, such as Winnicott's “potential space” and his notion of “holding,” are helpful in comprehending spiritual experiences that can easily be misunderstood, or “flattened out” to use Bion's phrase. Interesting and rather remarkable confluences in these concepts from psychoanalysis and…
Savage Beasts,” “Great Companions”
By investigating the nature of the social interactions between “sledge dogs” and explorers in the first land-based exploration in Antarctica, this research contributes to an animal-human perspective in Antarctic historical studies. Consideration of the interspecies interactions provide further insight into attitudes to nonhuman animal welfare, including towards wildlife, at the turn of the twentieth century. The companionship of favored animals a…
Using Resources of Nature in the Counselling Room
Workplace Responses and Psychologists’ Needs Following Client Suicide
This research aimed to explore the role of workplace responses in psychologists' adaptation to client suicides. Participants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self-report questionnaire which included both open and closed questions yielding qualitative and quantitative data. Fifty-six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Mixed results were found in terms of perceived support from the workplace following a client …
Forensic Patients and Forensic Mental Health in Victoria
Forensic mental health services in Australia have evolved and developed considerably over the past two decades. To clinicians unfamiliar with them, the contemporary practice environments in which professionals deliver specialised forensic mental health services and the legislation governing offenders with a mental illness can appear extremely complex. This article outlines the legislation applying to individuals found not guilty of a serious offe…
Impact of Client Suicide on Psychologists in Australia
ObjectiveThis research aimed to assess the frequency and impact of client suicides on psychologists in Australia.MethodParticipants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self‐report questionnaire concerning the frequency of occurrence and impact of client suicide.ResultFifty six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Psychologists with more years of experience reported more client suicides. Participants who had experi…
Ecopsychology and Evolutionary Psychology
This paper discusses how evolutionary psychology can be applied to ecopsychology, with particular emphasis on habitat selection theory as a way of making sense of preferences for natural environments. We argue that the usefulness of habitat selection theory is limited by a prevailing view of “slow” human evolution, where humans are seen to be best adapted to a hunter-gatherer way of life on the African savanna. Research suggests otherwise, that h…
Mystical Experiences in Nature
Although research in ecopsychology commonly identifies the value of spiritual experiences in nature for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour, previous research has not compared the outcomes of these experiences in natural and human-built settings. In the present study, the relationship between self-reported mystical experiences in natural and human-built environments for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour was inv…
“There's a deeper level of meaning as to what suffering's all about”
Some survivors of trauma report experiencing beneficial changes in self-perception, relationships, and philosophy of life, and positive changes in the realm of existential, spiritual, or religious matters. The purpose of the present study was to examine participants’ phenomenological experiences of spiritual and religious posttraumatic growth (PTG). Transcribed data from semi-structured interviews with 10 women, self-identified as Christian, who …
Spiritual well-being, burnout and trauma in counsellors and psychotherapists
Burnout represents a potential risk for counsellors and psychotherapists in their work with distressed clients. In the research reported here, the relationship between spiritual well-being and burnout was explored, with attention paid to clinicians' perceptions of trauma. Eighty-nine Australian counsellors and psychotherapists (71 females and 18 males) completed a demographic survey, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Spiritual Well-Being Scale. …
Being in That Environment Can Be Very Therapeutic”
The aim of this research was to investigate the qualities and outcomes of participants' spiritual experiences in nature. Twenty participants from Victoria, Australia, volunteered to take part in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were subject to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, leading to the identification of superordinate themes and subthemes. This analysis indicated that spiritual experiences in nature may lead to long-…
Spirituality in the Work of Theodore Roszak
Despite the recent flourishing of ecopsychology research, risks may be involved if ecopsychology remains a loosely defined paradigm. We suggest that drawing from some of the central themes of Theodore Roszak's The Voice of the Earth (1992), a seminal text of ecopsychology, may help to elucidate the unique contribution of ecopsychology and its sustained relevance for environmentally focused psychologies. To provide a comprehensive review, we consi…
Freud and the American physician's religious experience
Freud wrote a curious short paper at the end of 1927, the year in which his book, The future of an illusion was published. The paper is remarkable in that we as readers also have the evidence that Freud drew on, that is, a letter by an American physician unknown to Freud, detailing his religious experience. (This situation of having the same source material is not completely singular, as we also have access to Da Vinci's painting of the ‘Madonna …
The oceanic feeling and a sea change
Forensic Patients and Forensic Mental Health in Victoria
Forensic mental health services in Australia have evolved and developed considerably over the past two decades. To clinicians unfamiliar with them, the contemporary practice environments in which professionals deliver specialised forensic mental health services and the legislation governing offenders with a mental illness can appear extremely complex. This article outlines the legislation applying to individuals found not guilty of a serious offe…
Savage Beasts,” “Great Companions”
By investigating the nature of the social interactions between “sledge dogs” and explorers in the first land-based exploration in Antarctica, this research contributes to an animal-human perspective in Antarctic historical studies. Consideration of the interspecies interactions provide further insight into attitudes to nonhuman animal welfare, including towards wildlife, at the turn of the twentieth century. The companionship of favored animals a…
Impact of Client Suicide on Psychologists in Australia
ObjectiveThis research aimed to assess the frequency and impact of client suicides on psychologists in Australia.MethodParticipants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self‐report questionnaire concerning the frequency of occurrence and impact of client suicide.ResultFifty six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Psychologists with more years of experience reported more client suicides. Participants who had experi…
Heart and spirit
In qualitative interview research with 25 psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in London, Sydney and Melbourne, the author explored how these clinicians experienced, conceptualised and worked with spiritual issues. Bringing to bear their experience on both sides of the couch, this ‘information‐rich’ sample of mainly senior practitioners reflected on a psychoanalytically informed view of spirituality, and its understanding in clinica…
Heart and spirit
In qualitative interview research with 25 psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in London, Sydney and Melbourne, the author explored how these clinicians experienced, conceptualised and worked with spiritual issues. Bringing to bear their experience on both sides of the couch, this 'information-rich' sample of mainly senior practitioners reflected on a psychoanalytically informed view of spirituality, and its understanding in clinica…
Heart and spirit
In qualitative interview research with 25 psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in London, Sydney and Melbourne, the author explored how these clinicians experienced, conceptualised and worked with spiritual issues. Bringing to bear their experience on both sides of the couch, this ‘information‐rich’ sample of mainly senior practitioners reflected on a psychoanalytically informed view of spirituality, and its understanding in clinica…
Other than “the set pattern”
In qualitative research, psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists who had continued to have a personal interest in religion or spirituality reflected on their religious upbringing. The 25 participants interviewed often gave their responses in what can be identified as narrative form. These narratives articulated participants’ often poignant and distinctive, sometimes humorous, experiences. They relate how and why accepted teaching regar…
Freud and the American physician's religious experience
Freud wrote a curious short paper at the end of 1927, the year in which his book, The future of an illusion was published. The paper is remarkable in that we as readers also have the evidence that Freud drew on, that is, a letter by an American physician unknown to Freud, detailing his religious experience. (This situation of having the same source material is not completely singular, as we also have access to Da Vinci's painting of the ‘Madonna …
The oceanic feeling and a sea change
Spirituality in the Work of Theodore Roszak
Despite the recent flourishing of ecopsychology research, risks may be involved if ecopsychology remains a loosely defined paradigm. We suggest that drawing from some of the central themes of Theodore Roszak's The Voice of the Earth (1992), a seminal text of ecopsychology, may help to elucidate the unique contribution of ecopsychology and its sustained relevance for environmentally focused psychologies. To provide a comprehensive review, we consi…
Being in That Environment Can Be Very Therapeutic”
The aim of this research was to investigate the qualities and outcomes of participants' spiritual experiences in nature. Twenty participants from Victoria, Australia, volunteered to take part in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were subject to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, leading to the identification of superordinate themes and subthemes. This analysis indicated that spiritual experiences in nature may lead to long-…
“There's a deeper level of meaning as to what suffering's all about”
Some survivors of trauma report experiencing beneficial changes in self-perception, relationships, and philosophy of life, and positive changes in the realm of existential, spiritual, or religious matters. The purpose of the present study was to examine participants’ phenomenological experiences of spiritual and religious posttraumatic growth (PTG). Transcribed data from semi-structured interviews with 10 women, self-identified as Christian, who …
Spiritual well-being, burnout and trauma in counsellors and psychotherapists
Burnout represents a potential risk for counsellors and psychotherapists in their work with distressed clients. In the research reported here, the relationship between spiritual well-being and burnout was explored, with attention paid to clinicians' perceptions of trauma. Eighty-nine Australian counsellors and psychotherapists (71 females and 18 males) completed a demographic survey, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Spiritual Well-Being Scale. …
Ecopsychology and Evolutionary Psychology
This paper discusses how evolutionary psychology can be applied to ecopsychology, with particular emphasis on habitat selection theory as a way of making sense of preferences for natural environments. We argue that the usefulness of habitat selection theory is limited by a prevailing view of “slow” human evolution, where humans are seen to be best adapted to a hunter-gatherer way of life on the African savanna. Research suggests otherwise, that h…
Mystical Experiences in Nature
Although research in ecopsychology commonly identifies the value of spiritual experiences in nature for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour, previous research has not compared the outcomes of these experiences in natural and human-built settings. In the present study, the relationship between self-reported mystical experiences in natural and human-built environments for psychological well-being and environmental behaviour was inv…
Forensic Patients and Forensic Mental Health in Victoria
Forensic mental health services in Australia have evolved and developed considerably over the past two decades. To clinicians unfamiliar with them, the contemporary practice environments in which professionals deliver specialised forensic mental health services and the legislation governing offenders with a mental illness can appear extremely complex. This article outlines the legislation applying to individuals found not guilty of a serious offe…
Impact of Client Suicide on Psychologists in Australia
ObjectiveThis research aimed to assess the frequency and impact of client suicides on psychologists in Australia.MethodParticipants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self‐report questionnaire concerning the frequency of occurrence and impact of client suicide.ResultFifty six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Psychologists with more years of experience reported more client suicides. Participants who had experi…
Using Resources of Nature in the Counselling Room
Workplace Responses and Psychologists’ Needs Following Client Suicide
This research aimed to explore the role of workplace responses in psychologists' adaptation to client suicides. Participants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self-report questionnaire which included both open and closed questions yielding qualitative and quantitative data. Fifty-six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Mixed results were found in terms of perceived support from the workplace following a client …
Contemplating spiritual experience
In this paper, ways of contemplating and accommodating the unfamiliar, especially the “other” of spiritual experience, are considered. Some concepts from psychoanalysis, such as Winnicott's “potential space” and his notion of “holding,” are helpful in comprehending spiritual experiences that can easily be misunderstood, or “flattened out” to use Bion's phrase. Interesting and rather remarkable confluences in these concepts from psychoanalysis and…
Savage Beasts,” “Great Companions”
By investigating the nature of the social interactions between “sledge dogs” and explorers in the first land-based exploration in Antarctica, this research contributes to an animal-human perspective in Antarctic historical studies. Consideration of the interspecies interactions provide further insight into attitudes to nonhuman animal welfare, including towards wildlife, at the turn of the twentieth century. The companionship of favored animals a…
Professional Counsellors’ Perceptions and Experiences of Multicultural Counselling in Malaysia
Background and Purpose: The contemporary status of multicultural counselling field in Malaysia is ambiguous as there is limited research in this field. Even though Malaysia is deemed as a multicultural nation, there are still some issues and concerns with regards to the understanding and practice of multicultural counselling. Hence, the present research aims to: (a) explore the definitions of the term ‘multicultural counselling’ as perceived by p…
Whine and dust
As collaborators from different nationalities, genders, cultural backgrounds, occupations and age cohorts, in this article we present an account of our art-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project employed art practice as a way to deal with the noxious effects of isolation on our mental health and well-being during the many prolonged lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia. With reference to Warren Lett’s concept of companioning, in our…
Exploring Counsellors’ Understanding and Practice of Multicultural Counselling in Malaysia
Background and Purpose: In order to make counselling meaningful and culturally relevant, it is essential for counsellors to have a practical counselling model that is context-specific and matches the needs and values of the population of that specific culture. Hence, the present research aims to explore professional counsellors’ understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia. Methodology: This study adopted a complementarity …
So, Doctors, Let’s Rejoice in Our Life Sentence [Gaudeamus Igitur]
Taiko Drumming in the Sea of Japan (Travel Memory for Tiding-Over Times)
Field Student Blues
In this poem, the lived experience of disruption of a valued professional relationship and the reduction of the professional’s expertise when a field student observer enters the previously close dynamic, is illustrated
Grief in later life
Existing literature has identified that the death of a partner in later life is often accompanied by changes in the personal circumstances of the bereaved. However, the consequences following the death of a same-gender partner have attracted limited research attention. The present study aimed to investigate the consequent changes caused by the death of a same-gender partner in later life. Six gay men and four lesbians who had lost a same-gender p…
The Garden, Grief, and All That Is
In this narrative poem, the author explores the experience of grief and growth
Psychology (28 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Psychotherapist (12 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Qualitative research (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Psychoanalysis (9 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (8 works)