This study shows how social workers reason about the concepts of gender, gender roles and equality and if these arguments reinforce heteronormativity that could affect the ability of same-sex couples to adopt children. The reasoning regarding equality indicates a difference between heterosexual couples and same-sex couples. What emerges in the study is that the social workers reasoning can be explained with that they have been imbued by heteronormativity. Heteronormativity becomes a contributing part of how same-sex couples are seen in the adoption process. Arguments for equality, which erase stereotypes, do not apply in the same way for same-sex couples as for heterosexual couples.

Guaranteed cohabitation of elderly couples is a new law that gives elderly couples the right to live together in special housing. Even if only one of the spouses has an administrator?s decision to live in special housing. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how three municipalities materialize the social rights guaranteed for the elderly couples? cohabitation.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how same-sex couples experience the second-parent adoption process. To assist us, we have used our questions: how do the couples describe their experiences of the adoption process? Which are the couples? stories about the experience of contact with the involved professionals? What are the opportunities and barriers for same-sex couples to start a family? How do the couples describe their experience of reactions from the community and society, and how do they think the future will look like for same-sex couples? This study has been achieved through a qualitative approach. The empirical data is based on seven semi-structured interviews with same-sex couples or pair members that want to or have had a second-parent adoption. The theory we have used for analyzing the results is phenomenology with focus on queer theory, heteronormativity, and power.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how same-sex couples experience the second-parent adoption process. To assist us, we have used our questions: how do the couples describe their experiences of the adoption process? Which are the couples? stories about the experience of contact with the involved professionals? What are the opportunities and barriers for same-sex couples to start a family? How do the couples describe their experience of reactions from the community and society, and how do they think the future will look like for same-sex couples? This study has been achieved through a qualitative approach. The empirical data is based on seven semi-structured interviews with same-sex couples or pair members that want to or have had a second-parent adoption. The theory we have used for analyzing the results is phenomenology with focus on queer theory, heteronormativity, and power.

 The aim of this study was to describe the experiences and thoughts among midwives when encountering same sex couples at the maternity ward. Further, the aim was to explore the midwives attitudes towards education about special needs among same sex couples and their thoughts about contents and design of such education. The study had a descriptive design using a qualitative method. The data was collected through interviews with 10 midwives in February 2009. The midwives worked at two different maternity wards.

"A picture is worth a thousand words!?The purpose of this study is to show how familytherapy as a ground can deepen and demonstrate the value of using paintings to encourage the dialogue in coupletherapy. I have accomplished therapy with three different couples, which I report. All couples have painted four paintings each (encl.1-3) and have talked about their pictures. Through qualitative deapinterviews, every person has got the opportunity to tell their experience of painting together with their partner.

At two nursing homes for people with dementia a qualitative study was performed. The purpose was to investigate the therapy dog?s meaning to people with dementia from their perspective. Two women and five men with dementia were interviewed, everyone being somewhere between 60 and 87 years of age. All but one had previously owned a dog at some point in their lives.

Internationell forskning visar att samtliga etablerade psykoterapier är likvärdigt effektiva och att utfallet påverkas av såväl egenskaper hos terapeut samt klient som av relationen dem emellan. Syftet med studien var att identifiera innebörden i fenomenet allians i systemisk familjeterapi och studien har genomförts med fyra familjeterapeuter i en semistrukturerad fokusgrupp. Studien visade att allians i familjeterapi är ett samspelsfält inkluderande två relaterandenivåer såsom ram och interaktion. De två nivåerna omfattade aspekterna förtrogenhet, asymmetri, relatera till flera, samförstånd, närvaro och berördhet. I resultatet visades också att allians i systemisk familjeterapi handlar om flera allianser mellan terapeut och klienter i olika system.

Today therapy dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) service people more than ever and different categories of work places use therapy dogs to help their caretakers. Many studies have been made on the positive effects in patients when they are given contact with a dog, but very little have been done on how the dog experience its situation and what kind of behaviour a therapy dog shows during its working days. This work was made to investigate the behaviours that educated therapy dogs in Sweden showed when they were in contact with a caretaker and to find out if the dogs showed any signs of stress or some other kind of discomfort. To do this a survey was sent out to 17 educated therapy dog handlers in Sweden that together had 18 educated therapy dogs. The survey contained 39 questions about the daily work of the therapy dogs when they were together with caretakers and some questions about the therapy dogs spare time. A question about what kind of dog breed the therapy dog handlers had were also in the survey to investigate if some breeds were more usual as therapy dogs.

The aim of the study was to illustrate how music therapy can be used in the care of patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic illness.The method used was a literature review. Scientific articles were searched in PubMed, Cinahl, PsycINFO och Scopus databases with an outcome of ten articles, with in total 330 participants, that underwent quality and outcomes analysis.The results showed that music therapy could provide potential improvement in the patients' social functions and that it could also improve negative, some positive and general schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms in some patients. The form of music therapy used was often creative music activities with music therapist, with or without structure, or individually customized. The length of treatment varied widely. It was not possible to draw conclusions about which type of music therapy was best.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how subordination and superiority emerges in the interaction between heterosexual couples between 20 to 30 years old, without children. Eight semi-structured interviews with four couples have been conducted to provide insight into how subordination and superiority is made in the interaction between the cohabiting couples. All interviews were transcribed and then manually categorized along specific main themes and sub themes. The empirical data were then assayed by a hermeneutic interpretation.   Three previous studies have formed the basis for this study, Det kallas kärlek by Carin Holmberg, the anthology, Jämställdhetens pris and Familjer i tiden by Christine Roman and Helen Peterson. The theoretical framework consists symbolic interactionism, and especially the concept of asymmetrical role-taking and also doing gender.

Aphasia is a linguistic impairment which affects communication and may have an impact on a person?s narrative ability. The purpose of the present study was to analyse the narrative ability in aphasia by narrative interviews with people with aphasia and their partners. The interviews were scrutinised for strategies used in joint narration involving couples where one of the spouses has aphasia. The definition of strategies was methods to cope with communicative difficulties often due to aphasia.

In my work as family counselor I have long seen a pattern with many of the couples I?ve met. Thepattern consists of a movement where one person take an offensive, accusing and sometimeschasing position, whilst the other person is on the retreat. Over and over again I?ve made theexperience that if you help them solve a single problem another one pops up.

Animal-assisted therapy had its large breakthrough in the 1960-ties when a psychiatrist named Boris Levinson discovered the great advantages of involving animals in the treatment of patients. Therapy with animals involves that animals are used in a systematic way, in a person's process of treatment. The most distinguished companion animal used within this area is the dog, but horses, cats, rabbits, birds, dolphins and the most common farm animals are used in animal-assisted therapy. Most animals that are to be used for this specific purpose need to be trained in order to maintain their physical and mental health, but also to minimize the risks for the people that are involved. Most studies within this research area are focused on the positive effects on the patients and less on the effects on the animals.

The aim was to describe the experiences of couples where the male partner had undergone radical prostatectomy due to prostate cancer. Furthermore, the study explored how the operation had affected their sexual life, whether the couples had received enough post surgical support and information concerning these issues, and to describe the kind of support and information these couples desired. Twenty men and ten partners participated. All the men experienced a varying degree of post surgical erectile dysfunction and only five men had received support concerning their sexual life. Eleven men desired professional visiting support activities.