Papers by Andrea Lamont-Mills
This presentation describes how we have constructed sport psychology as mental equipment for adol... more This presentation describes how we have constructed sport psychology as mental equipment for adolescent athletes living in northwest New South Wales (NSW). Using local materials readily found in Moree, Gunnedah, Tenterfield and other towns in northwest NSW, we have been able to introduce adolescent athletes living in regional, rural, and remote NSW to basic sport psychology concepts using mental equipment packs. These low-tech, low-cost, and local resources contrast sharply with the high-tech, high-cost, and imported physical equipment required for most sports. We produced the first mental equipment packs for $1.06 in 2003, and we have continued to use them with athletes and their families and friends via the Northern Inland Academy of Sport (NIAS) Regional Athlete Coach Education (RACE) program. This high-cost/low-cost contrast is an important asset in constructing sport psychology as accessible to regional, rural, and remote athletes, and their families and communities. We understand that these packs, and the service delivery system that accompanies them, is the first program specifically designed for regional, rural, and remote athletes. This work is unconventional because it puts aside the orthodox view that equates basic sport psychology with mental skills. It does this by questioning the view that mental skills are the dialogical opposite to the physical skills needed for success in sport. NIAS commenced in November 1992 and has two paid employees: an Executive Officer, Peter Annis-Brown, the third author of this article, and a Sports Administration Officer. NIAS offers between 150-180 scholarships to talented adolescent athletes aged between 14-18 years who live in the New England and North West region of NSW each year (see Figure 1 for a map of the region covered by NIAS).
The Australian Psychological Society Code of Ethics explicitly states that clients are to be info... more The Australian Psychological Society Code of Ethics explicitly states that clients are to be informed about the legal limits of confidentiality prior to engaging in any psychological relationship. Maintaining and respecting client confidentiality is also seen as a major professional obligation. Despite this, little research has examined how limits of confidentiality is introduced, discussed, and oriented to in real-life psychological consultations. An initial consultation between a client and a provisionally registered psychologist was used to explore how a psychologist and client interactively managed limits of confidentiality. Using a discursive psychological framework, analysis revealed that while the psychologist complied with the ethical obligation of informing the client of the limits of confidentially before counselling began, the way in which the psychologist enacted this restricted the client's opportunities to ask questions or seek clarification about these limits. Further, when the psychologist explicitly asked for client confirmation of understanding and acceptance of these limits, what the client confirmed and accepted appears unclear. Given that breaches of confidentiality are Registration Board matters, this lack of clarity and limiting of client interaction is concerning.
Conversation analysis (CA) research with children is the study of children’s talk-in-interaction.... more Conversation analysis (CA) research with children is the study of children’s talk-in-interaction. It focuses on the social interactions that children engage in, and like CA research with adults, analytic attention is on explicating the features of these interactions. How children learn to interact with others, how they use talk to accomplish social actions, how they make sense of their worlds, and how they meaningfully participate in social interactions are key aims. Given that childhood is one of the most heavily regulated developmental periods, CA research with children can demonstrate how children actively participate in their own childhood, negotiating, challenging, and navigating complex interactional encounters. Children, here we mean zero-to-eighteen-year-olds, have traditionally been positioned as somehow “incomplete.” Successful development and progress to adulthood means that a state of completeness has been obtained. Developmental research focuses heavily on children who are not successfully progressing and includes difficulties with language acquisition, learning, development, or mental health. Children’s interactional practices as the focal point of research have largely been overlooked. Preference for cognitive explanations of behavior and development has resulted in treating what children say as reflective of their developing cognitive processes. By treating language as socially constitutive of childhood experiences, where such experiences are produced through children’s active participation in interactions, development and childhood become situated as emergent, local, and in situ interactional accomplishments. There is no one underpinning framework that permeates CA with research children. Researchers have applied CA methodology to children’s interactions in varied ways. Theoretically, CA research with children takes either more of an ethnomethodological or developmental position, although this is somewhat of an artificial categorization. Developmentally focused research is more concerned with using CA to explicate children’s language acquisition and the development of language skills. Here, emphasis is on the child and their interactional skills. Ethnomethodologically focused research is more interested in the sense making practices that children adopt and the practical social accomplishments that children achieve in their interactions. Prominence is given to how children interact with others in various interactional settings and how this interaction displays understandings of childhood. Categorizing CA research with children is fraught with difficulties, as many categorizations are possible. One way is to distinguish by theoretical underpinnings, development, or ethnomethodological. Another is to categorize by the substantive area being researched, and this is the position that has been adopted in this work.
PLOS ONE, Oct 27, 2022
The anonymity that the internet and social media affords users means that suicidal thoughts and/o... more The anonymity that the internet and social media affords users means that suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours can be talked about with a sense of freedom and disinhibition that is often not possible in face-to-face contexts. Better understanding online suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour talk is critical as more people turn to online spaces for support. Without this the potentiality of such spaces as sites for suicide prevention and intervention is likely to remain unrealised. Currently there are no scoping or systematic review syntheses focusing on internet and/or on social media suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour talk. This lack of synthesis is problematic as it makes it more difficult for online suicide prevention and intervention practices, policies, and our understanding of suicide to advance in a coherent and evidencebased manner. A scoping review protocol following Arksey and O'Malley's six-step modified framework has been developed to address this synthesis gap. It aims to systematically map the empirical literature that has investigated online suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours talk. It is anticipated that review outcomes could inform the training of health practitioners and peer/professional online moderators in how to best talk with people experiencing suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours. Outcomes could also form an evidence-base for developing policies and practices that focus on online places as safe spaces to talk about suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours. Developers of safe language guidelines could also use the outcomes to audit how well current guidelines reflect empirical evidence. Outcomes could enable researchers to design future online suicidal thoughts and/behaviours talk studies that extend our understandings of suicide leading to potential refinements of contemporary suicide theories/models.
Frontiers in Psychiatry, Jun 13, 2022
Introduction: Individuals experiencing suicidal crises increasingly turn to online mental health ... more Introduction: Individuals experiencing suicidal crises increasingly turn to online mental health forums for support. Support can come from peers but also from online moderators, many of whom are trained health professionals. Much is known about users' forum experiences; however, the experiences of professional moderators who work to keep users safe has been overlooked. The beneficial nature of online forums cannot be fully realized until there is a clearer understanding of both parties' participation. This study explored the experiences of professional online forum moderators engaged in suicide prevention. Materials and Methods: A purposive sample of professionally qualified moderators was recruited from three online mental health organizations. In-depth semi-structured, video-recorded interviews were conducted with 15 moderators (3 male, 12 female), to explore their experiences and perceptions of working in online suicide prevention spaces. Data was analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Five themes were identified related to the experiences and challenges for moderators. These were the sense of the unknown, the scope of the role, limitations of the written word, volume of tasks, and balancing individual vs. community needs. Discussion: Findings indicate that the professionally qualified moderator role is complex and multifaceted, with organizations failing to recognize these aspects. Organizations restrict moderators from using their full therapeutic skill set, limiting them to only identifying and redirecting at-risk users to crisis services. The benefits of moderated online forums could be enhanced by allowing moderators to use more of their skills. To facilitate this, in-situ research is needed that examines how moderators use their skills to identify at-risk users.
PLOS ONE, Oct 27, 2022
Suicide capability is theorised to facilitate the movement from suicidal ideation to suicide atte... more Suicide capability is theorised to facilitate the movement from suicidal ideation to suicide attempt. Three types of contributors are posited to comprise suicide capability: acquired, dispositional, and practical. Despite suicide capability being critical in the movement from ideation-to-attempt, there has been no systematic synthesis of empirical evidence relating to suicide capability that would enable further development and refinement of the concept. This study sought to address this synthesis gap. A scoping review was conducted on suicide capability studies published January 2005 to January 2022. Eleven electronic databases and grey literature sources were searched returning 5,212 potential studies. After exclusion criteria application, 90 studies were included for final analysis. Results synthesis followed a textual narrative approach allocating studies based on contributors of suicide capability. Most studies focused on investigating only one factor within contributors. Painful and provocative events appear to contribute to acquired capability more so than fearlessness about death. Whilst emerging evidence for dispositional and practical contributors is promising, the small number of studies prevents further conclusions from being drawn. An unexpected additional cognitive contributor was identified. The focus of a single factor from most studies and the limited number of studies on contributors other than acquired capability limits the theoretical development and practical application of suicide capability knowledge. Given that suicide is a complex and multifaceted behaviour, future research that incorporates a combination of contributors is more likely to advance our understandings of suicide capability.
This paper describes how we approached the problem of providing sport psychology knowledge and sk... more This paper describes how we approached the problem of providing sport psychology knowledge and skills to adolescent athletes living in the sparsely populated and geographically large New England and North West Region of New South Wales. We display two approaches that we have used to solve this problem from 2000-2002 and 2003-2006, respectively. We recommend sport innovations be constructed using conceptual, technical, and service delivery system advances, and be built using local and imported materials.
The aim of this presentation is to extend our consideration of evidence-based practice in psychol... more The aim of this presentation is to extend our consideration of evidence-based practice in psychology. To date the focus of evidence-based practice has been to make clinical treatments more accountable (Levant, 2005). But, similarly, evidence-based practice can be applied to make the practices of psychologists in teaching, research, and non-clinical settings accountable. However it is not immediately obvious how to begin this move. It becomes clearer by broadening the range of evidence being considered for eliciting best practice. Say, in contrast to elevating the status of particular individuals as teaching, research, or consulting experts. This focuses on the evidence of practice rather than assigning authority to exemplary individuals. This can be accomplished by collecting naturalistic data and using it to display normative and exceptional practices. Conversation analysis provides a methodology and discursive psychology offers a conceptual framework for eliciting best practices. This is a starting point because discourse is central to teaching, research, and consulting activities in psychology. Data from two cases-an extract from a semi-structured research interview and an extract from a first consultation between a psychologistclient will be used to illustrate this.
In this paper we describe how we have provided sport psychology to pre-elite adolescent athletes ... more In this paper we describe how we have provided sport psychology to pre-elite adolescent athletes who live in the New England and North West Region of New South Wales. Providing sport psychology to regional, rural, and remote athletes is more challenging than it initially appears. It involves more than simply confronting the tyranny of distance that these athletes and their coaches and families face. The dilemma is how to make sport psychology relevant and accessible to athletes who live in or near small country towns that are a world away from State and National Sports Institutes and the sporting facilities that were built for Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Simply rolling out programs developed for citybased athletes fails to consider the psychological, social, economic, and political issues that confront young people who are growing up in regional, rural, and remote Australia. This short-changes these athletes. Instead providing sport psychology for this athlete population involves conceptual, technical, and service delivery innovation. A central feature of our redevelopment of sport psychology has been to construct it as low-cost, low-tech, and locally available mental equipment. We have developed the NIAS Mental Equipment Packs that contain small inexpensive objects as communication, concentration, motivation, emotional control, approach behaviours, and relaxation equipment that can be taken to competition and to training.
This case study focuses on the practicalities of undertaking real-world psychology research. By r... more This case study focuses on the practicalities of undertaking real-world psychology research. By real world, we mean observing people as they live their everyday lives and exploring how they draw upon psychological concepts to do this. The everyday that has captured our attention is the psychology consultation as a rich data source for explicating the professional practice of psychology. We have moved away from studying orthodox psychological topics using traditional research paradigms, and moved towards studying real-world psychology as it occurs in natural settings using Conversational Analysis. It is our view that this alternative approach to researching professional practices, using the psychology consultation as data, provides insights into professional work that is not possible using other methods. It allows us to look at the interactional skillfulness by which psychologists and clients work together to enact behavior change. Our aim is therefore to entice beginning researchers to look to the psychology consultation as a potential research site, to consider alternate ways of researching, and be open to different ways of understanding the professional practice of psychology.
The two and a half day symposium is designed to build upon and enhance the emerging profile and s... more The two and a half day symposium is designed to build upon and enhance the emerging profile and scope of CA/MCA work being done within Australasia and to make and develop connections with those working in this field. To this end the title 'Branching Out' reflects both the emerging strength of Australasian CA/MCA work nationally and internationally as well as the unique collaborative interests that have potential for the strength of the approach into the future.
This case study focuses on the practicalities of undertaking real-world psychology research. By r... more This case study focuses on the practicalities of undertaking real-world psychology research. By real world, we mean observing people as they live their everyday lives and exploring how they draw upon psychological concepts to do this. The everyday that has captured our attention is the psychology consultation as a rich data source for explicating the professional practice of psychology. We have moved away from studying orthodox psychological topics using traditional research paradigms, and moved towards studying real-world psychology as it occurs in natural settings using Conversational Analysis. It is our view that this alternative approach to researching professional practices, using the psychology consultation as data, provides insights into professional work that is not possible using other methods. It allows us to look at the interactional skillfulness by which psychologists and clients work together to enact behavior change. Our aim is therefore to entice beginning researchers to look to the psychology consultation as a potential research site, to consider alternate ways of researching, and be open to different ways of understanding the professional practice of psychology.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Feb 14, 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
PLOS ONE
The anonymity that the internet and social media affords users means that suicidal thoughts and/o... more The anonymity that the internet and social media affords users means that suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours can be talked about with a sense of freedom and disinhibition that is often not possible in face-to-face contexts. Better understanding online suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour talk is critical as more people turn to online spaces for support. Without this the potentiality of such spaces as sites for suicide prevention and intervention is likely to remain unrealised. Currently there are no scoping or systematic review syntheses focusing on internet and/or on social media suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour talk. This lack of synthesis is problematic as it makes it more difficult for online suicide prevention and intervention practices, policies, and our understanding of suicide to advance in a coherent and evidence-based manner. A scoping review protocol following Arksey and O’Malley’s six-step modified framework has been developed to address this synthesis gap. It aims to s...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
IntroductionIndividuals experiencing suicidal crises increasingly turn to online mental health fo... more IntroductionIndividuals experiencing suicidal crises increasingly turn to online mental health forums for support. Support can come from peers but also from online moderators, many of whom are trained health professionals. Much is known about users' forum experiences; however, the experiences of professional moderators who work to keep users safe has been overlooked. The beneficial nature of online forums cannot be fully realized until there is a clearer understanding of both parties' participation. This study explored the experiences of professional online forum moderators engaged in suicide prevention.Materials and MethodsA purposive sample of professionally qualified moderators was recruited from three online mental health organizations. In-depth semi-structured, video-recorded interviews were conducted with 15 moderators (3 male, 12 female), to explore their experiences and perceptions of working in online suicide prevention spaces. Data was analyzed using inductive them...
Journal of Academic Ethics, 2021
A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processe... more A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards deliberate, with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how Deliberative communication, Engagement with researchers and the Distribution of responsibility for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. Deliberative communication, Engagement with researchers and the Distribution of responsibility provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work.
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Papers by Andrea Lamont-Mills
Therefore, the use of gender-related interpretative repertoires differed according to the identity that was being scripted up. Thus participants were able to be Masculine, Androgynous, and Feminine, and position themselves differently depending upon the identity that was being prescribed and the local interaction context. That is, participants used interpretative repertoires to talk one way, but walk another (e.g., Androgynous interpretative repertoire, Hegemonic Masculine reflexive position) that was specific to the social, historical, and cultural context, and the local interactional context. The above results call into question Spence and Helmreich’s (1978) postulation that there is one Masculine and one Feminine identity. Indeed the results are suggestive of many Masculinities and many Femininities. Participants also deployed specific discursive strategies that incorporated the action and epistemological orientation of their talk when constituting their identities. That is, they worked to increase the facticity of their talk and worked to align themselves with certain positions (e.g., Hegemonic Masculine man) and not others (Feminine man) through their discourse. Thus gendered talk carried with it gendered ideological practices that participants used to reproduce, reinforce, and challenge the current gender order. The above results, combined with the disparity between the PAQ results and the a-priori content analysis, suggest that earlier and current models of gender that conceptualise gender as a multifaceted, multidimensional, bi-directional but static concept are probably not representative of how people do gender in everyday talk. The results support extant theory that gender identities might exist rather than a single gender identity. Overall, the results of this dissertation -suggest that elite sportswomen and sportsmen enact and negotiate membership of identity categories that is specific to the local interactional context, as well as the cultural, social (i.e., sport), and historical context. I infer, therefore, that current static gender models in sport and exercise psychology may not fully capture the complexity of gender in everyday talk and that alternative ways of understanding gender in sport are needed.
Gwalior, India 29-31st January 2017