The National University System Repository exists to increase public access to research and other materials created by students and faculty of the affiliate institutions of National University System. Most items in the repository are open access, freely available to everyone.
Recent Submissions
Item Exploring the Psychological and Emotional Experiences of Suicide Bereavement(2025-10-28)This capstone explores the psychological and emotional experiences of individuals bereaved by suicide through a systemic synthesis of existing literature. It integrates findings from qualitative and quantitative studies to subsequently identify key patterns. Four primary themes emerged: psychological and physical manifestations of grief, emotional complexity, protective factors and coping processes and systemic postvention supports and unmet needs. Findings suggest that suicide bereavement is a multidimensional and nonlinear process shaped by the interaction of emotional distress, cognitive processing, social dynamics and systemic influences. Stigma emerged as a central factor influencing both internal experiences and access to support, often contributing to isolation and intensified distress. Processes such as social support and meaning making were identified as important pathways for adaptation, although they are not universally beneficial. The review also highlights limitations within the current evidence base, including a reliance on cross-sectional and self-reported data, limited longitudinal research and a lack of culturally diverse perspectives. Overall, these findings underscore the complexity of suicide bereavement and the need for flexible, trauma-informed approaches to support individuals bereaved by suicide.Item Ambiguous Loss from Parental Substance Use Disorder: Implications for Child Attachment and Development(2026-02-16)Ambiguous loss, a concept coined by Pauline Boss, provides an understanding for the psychological loss of an individual that lacks clarity and closure for another. Leaving loved ones without clarity and closure or answers nor a resolution. Due to this uncertainty, individuals are left in a continuous state of unresolved grief. Ambiguous loss is applied in many ways but lacks recognition within parental substance use disorder (SUD). This capstone research project explores how ambiguous loss shows up within child-parent relationships specifically through attachment and development when a parent struggles with SUD. While utilizing attachment and developmental theories and literature, this paper is able to explore how relational inconsistency may contribute to certain attachment styles, patterns, and consequently alter a child's emotional, cognitive and behavioural development. By recognizing parental SUD through the ambiguous loss lens, this review highlights attachment impairments as a key component that links substance use to long term developmental risks. This capstone thoroughly explores five key themes evident in the literature, correlating parental SUD functions, attachment, childhood internalization, intergenerational transmission, and developmental impacts. With these findings, this research project then concludes with future implications on how clinicians can better support individuals exposed to this extremely underrepresented but tremendously important topic.Item Stochastic Terrorism: Clinical Interventions to Help Minority Stress for Gender and Sexual Minorities in an Era of Disinformation(2026-02-19)This capstone examines the concept of stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is defined as an act of public demonization of gender and sexual minorities by a speaker who channels pre-existing societal stress towards the intended group, creating demonization, acts of violence, and minority stress of the targeted group. This capstone explores what stochastic terrorism is, how it operates, the psychological and social impact of it, what current scholarly research says about it, and which therapy interventions are suitable to treat victims of it. This capstone includes a literature review of peer-reviewed research articles published within 5 to 6 years that discuss and dissect the abovementioned concepts. The findings of the literature review yielded four major themes: current impact of stochastic terrorism, the mechanics of stochastic terrorism, social media as a double-edged sword, and relevant clinical applications. The literature review also acknowledges gaps in current research regarding a lack of research on therapy interventions that specifically target stochastic terrorism's negative effects. Several clinical interventions that target minority stress experienced by gender and sexual minorities were uncovered in the literature review.Item Integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cultural Humility to Support Newcomer and Refugee Youth Mental Health in Canada(2026-01-06)This Capstone examines how newcomer and refugee youth in Canada reach mental health support and what helps them stay engaged once they arrive. Across Canada, immigration is reshaping schools, communities, and service systems, yet immigrant and refugee youth continue to use formal mental health services less often than Canadian born peers, even when distress is high. The project asks two questions. First, how do multilevel barriers, including structural conditions and public, family, and self stigma, shape newcomer and refugee youths' help seeking in Canada. Second, which counselling practices grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and in cultural humility (CH) show promise for reducing stigma related barriers and improving engagement. An integrative literature review synthesized qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and conceptual work published between 2015 and 2025. Six themes were developed. Three describe how structural and systemic constraints, cultural and stigma related processes, and navigation gaps combine to delay disclosure, reduce uptake, and weaken continuity of care. Three identify practice directions that draw on ACT processes such as psychological flexibility and values guided action, along with a CH stance that attends to power, context, and partnership. The Capstone argues that improving engagement requires attention to both external pathways of access, language, and navigation and internal pathways of shame, avoidance, and meaning-making. Chapter Three translates this integrated ACT plus CH framework into a practice focused toolkit with concrete strategies for more culturally safe, accessible, and sustainable mental health support for newcomer and refugee youth.Item Emotionally Focused Therapy for Anxious Attachment in Young Adulthood(2026-03-24)This capstone examines how Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) supports emotion regulation and attachment security in young adults with anxious attachment. Although EFT is a well-known attachment-based intervention, little is known about how its mechanisms apply to young adults (YA) whose attachment systems are still forming. Currently, the majority of the EFT literature remains focused on adult and couple populations. A variety of academic databases, including PsycINFO, PubMed, and Google Scholar, were searched to identify recent peer-reviewed research on anxious attachment, young adulthood, emotion regulation, and Emotionally Focused Therapy. Studies were selected based on relevance, recency, and quality, and then analyzed using a thematic approach. This review found that commonly used therapies such as CBT, ACT, and CFT primarily target symptom reduction as well as intrapersonal processes, while EFT may offer a relational and emotion-focused framework that aligns more closely with attachment-based needs. The review findings indicated that anxious attachment in YA is shaped by developmental instability, identity formation, and high relational turnover, making EFT a strong candidate for therapeutic intervention in this population. However, gaps remain regarding developmental adaptations and cultural applicability. This review also emphasizes the significance of combining clinical practice, research, and policy to enhance therapeutic intervention for YA. This capstone concludes by highlighting the need for more research specific to this population and therapeutic intervention. It also emphasizes a need for culturally sensitive treatment strategies that close the knowledge gap between research and practice.
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