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Aims • To find out how women with learning disabilities within secure mental health hospital settings in the United Kingdom viewed their experiences of seclusion. It set out to capture the unique experiences of women with learning disabilities by exploring and analysing their own accounts. • To inform and contribute to the current policy drive and debate regarding the use of restrictive practices across mental health and learning disability services and include the views of the participants themselves. Methodology and Methods The study has been designed within a feminist framework which has shaped and guided the way in which the literature review was conducted and then also the methodological design and data analysis. This study adopted a qualitative Case Study methodology that allowed different sources of data to be collected and analysed. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data from fifteen women in two different medium and low secure hospital settings. These data were triangulated with case notes, observations and discussions with care staff. Data were analysed thematically. Findings Thematic analysis identified three themes which showed gender nuances in seclusion use for women. The themes were: 1. Cultural construction and language 2. This is me - Self-perception and what defines the female and learning disability experience 3. Hierarchy, support and power - the importance of staff Key findings included: • A-typical and multifactorial nature of seclusion - differing perceptions and perspectives on the reasons seclusion is implemented • The importance of language and its misrepresentation of perception. Cultural language embodied by the institution is also adopted and used by the women to express themselves and to describe their experiences. This is reflective of the institution but not necessarily reflective of the way in which these women themselves feel. • The importance that the women attach to having the support of familiar, skilled staff. For the seclusion experience to be and to remain a therapeutic experience then familiar staff need to be utilised with significant therapeutic skills. Discussion and Conclusion The findings of this study offer a unique contribution to knowledge by providing insights of the experiences of seclusion from the perspective of women with a learning disability. Use of a feminist lens brings to the fore the role of language and power. This leads us to consider how our current policy, legislation and guidance serves the women and the way in which they experience seclusion. Recommendations for practice change are offered based on the narrative of the women, the female clinical presentation and viewing our current debate on the use of seclusion through the experiences of these individuals. Implications for Practice • The skills and consistency of staff support is vital for individuals experiencing seclusion. It is therefore important to ensure that this forms part of care planning, risk assessment for seclusion and other associated restrictive practices. • Staff need to understand the perception of seclusion and experience of seclusion of the individual person. For some the need to feel safe and supported around de-escalation is vital. • Staff need to understand that the person with a learning disability who uses institutional language within the hospital culture is not necessarily demonstrating their true understanding or experience of seclusion. Language has the potential to act as a barrier to understanding service user perception. Implications for Future Research • The methodological approach taken through the interpretation and use of Case Study methodology allows for the individual experience to guide our knowledge and insight into current practices. This research could inform future approaches to enquiring into the lives of people with a learning disability, encouraging participation and an individualised approach that enables us to better understand their experiences through primary qualitative research. • This study discovered that seclusion could have a different meaning to those experiencing it from the way in which policy and process has been steered. Seclusion to some was shown at times to be somewhere that women could retreat to and yet to some reinforced an already established power imbalance that they had always accepted and experience on account of their past experiences and at times, their gender. Future research can explore this subject further through involvement of the participant in deconstructing the concepts of restrictive practice and inspire a confidence to involve those in studies whose health may fluctuate over allocated research time. This research can inform the way in which we faithfully capture the voices of those less heard in research with learning disabilities. This research contributes to our current knowledge by highlighting gender differences which call in to question processes of seclusion and the way in which these are implemented for both women and people with a learning disability. The research demonstrates that change is required through the way in which women perceive seclusion both as punishment but also as a safe space through which to escape difficult experiences within the ward environment.

Here I provide an overview of the ways in which phenotypic plasticity is suggested to be relevant to evolutionary dynamics, and examine the various predicted dynamics of plastic traits in novel environments. Following on from this, I use adaptive radiation of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) into freshwater environments as a model system to examine the dynamics of multiple plastic traits under relaxed selection. I find that - as expected - overall survival plasticity appears to initially increase upon exposure to a novel environment before generally (but not always) decreasing under relaxed selection over time. My results suggest that morphological variation increases in the environments no longer experienced by daughter populations, implying that plasticity declines chiefly through accumulation of drifted cryptic genetic variation. From this I conclude that the plasticity of a trait may be relevant to its evolutionary dynamics (and those of the lineage) in novel environments - and that environment-dependent expression of alleles in rare environmental conditions may represent a limiting factor of adaptive phenotypic plasticity.

Background: This study's aim was to pilot a Counselling Psychology informed workplace intervention to ascertain its efficacy in improving the mental health and wellbeing of participants. The catalyst for the study was the researcher training to be a Counselling Psychologist coupled with their Occupational Psychology training and work with many organisations as a consultant/trainer (which enabled them to also deliver the study's intervention), where they identified workplace mental health and wellbeing as an area of concern. A review of available research indicated many workplaces have a significant negative effect on their employee's mental health and wellbeing. The impact of employees reduced mental health and wellbeing on them, their organisations and in turn the economy supports the researcher's position that this is a valuable focus of research. Methods: The current study used a mixed methods(quantitative and qualitative), randomised controlled, between-subjects experimental design with 24 participants (10 in the experimental group and 14 in the control group). The qualitative data was collected from all participants through an online pre and post intervention questionnaire and post intervention semi-structured interviews with the 10 experimental group participants. This qualitative data was then analysed using thematic analysis. The quantitative data collected from all 24 study participants through online pre and postintervention self-report questionnaires was analysed using four quantitative scales. The scales used were the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), Depression, Anxiety and Stress 21 scale (Henry and Crawford, 2005), the Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (Chesney et al, 2006) and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, (Tennant et al, 2007). The results of the qualitative and quantitative research were triangulated to enable the results to be considered concurrently and equally. The study participants were from two organisations, Platfform a mental health and social change charity and Hafod a provider of housing,care and support. The intervention being piloted consisted of four, two-hour sessions, delivered online to group of participants once a week for four weeks. The intervention was designed drawing on a range of psychological strategies and techniques including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness and resilience research. Results: The study findings were that the intervention has a significant effect on a range of factors that collectively indicate a positive impact on participant's mental health and wellbeing. The quantitative measure's results (paired samples t-tests) indicated that participant's Resilience, Hardiness, Meaningfulness/Purpose, Coping/Self-Efficacy and Wellbeing all increased significantly following the intervention. There was also a marginally significant increase in participant's Regulation of Emotion and Cognition, and a decrease in their level of Stress. The qualitative results were equally encouraging, as all participants reported that the intervention had a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing. The four qualitative themes that emerged from the data expressed the participant's view that the intervention had a positive effect on their wellbeing, that the learning process was beneficial, the session experience positive and participants found they were able to apply the intervention's strategies widely. Conclusion: The overwhelming positive results from both the quantitative and qualitative research indicate that the intervention has achieved its aim of having a positive impact on both participant's mental health and their wellbeing. This outcome leads the researcher to conclude that the Counselling Psychology informed intervention's pilot results indicate that is has been successful in improving participant's mental health and wellbeing. Therefore,despite the study's limitations discussed in Chapter 5based on the pilot study's findings the intervention warrants further, larger scale research which is also discussed in Chapter 5.

This thesis describes work towards two discrete projects; Chapter 1-3 methodology development of enantioconvergent reactions, Chapter 5-7 total synthesis of brevianamide type natural products. Both of these studies are linked through the underlying theme of the development of novel dimerisations. Chapter 1-3: Classically, asymmetric synthesis has relied upon kinetic resolutions to deal with racemic starting materials. Unfortunately, the use of kinetic resolutions is limited to a maximum 50% yield, which represents a serious inefficiency in modern chemical synthesis. Enantioconvergent reactions offer a method to circumvent this limitation and afford a single enantio-enriched product in a maximum theoretical yield of 100%. However, all currently known methods for achieving enantioconvergency are limited in their substrate scope; the starting materials invariably contain stereogenic elements that are amenable to mutation or ablation and are currently unable to contain multiple stereogenic centres. We aimed to overcome this long-standing limitation by developing stereoretentive-enantioconvergent reactions, which would allow the use of racemic substrates with multiple robust stereogenic elements. The new approach would feature a symmetry-breaking dimerisation of racemic starting materials to form of a non-meso dimeric product. To accomplish this we targeted dimerisations that are inherently heterochiral-selective (i.e., opposite enantiomers dimerise), and developed methods to make these reactions enantioconvergent. This thesis will describe our investigations into previously known heterochiral-selective dimerisations; an aza-Darzens dimerization (Chapter 2) and a Diels-Alder dimerization (Chapter 3), and efforts to make them enantioconvergent including the success of performing the first stereoretenetive enantioconvergent aza-Darzens reaction. Chapter 4-7: The brevianamides are a family of alkaloid natural products extracted from the Aspergillus and Pencillium fungi. The brevianamides were the first natural products, isolated in 1969, to contain the archetypal bicyclo[2.2.2]diazaoctane ring. Since their first isolation their complex structure and varied biological activities have inspired many total syntheses. Despite decades of experimentation, the synthesis of many members of the brevianamide family have yet to be conquered and many unanswered questions remain about their biosynthetic origin. In 2020 the Lawrence group published the first total synthesis of brevianamide A, over 50 years since its isolation. This thesis continues the Lawrence group's work and describes the efforts towards the first total synthesis of a dimeric member of the natural product family, in addition to the concise bioinspired total synthesis of other members. These studies also provided new mechanistic insights into the key domino reaction pathway believed to be biosynthetically responsible for constructing the core bicyclo[2.2.2]diazaoctane motif.