ABSTRACT
The fulcrum of knowledge utilization is the establishment of an alliance between the researchers, the administrators, and those directly affected by implementation. This chapter presents a study, which was designed as a program in basic research, with implications for applied work, and was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The study involves the emotional reactions of psychiatric nurses and aides to disturbed adolescent patients. The research focused on twenty-four staff members on four locked wards in two private psychiatric hospitals. During the observations, the ethnographers recorded their interpretations of the staff member's affect, based on facial expression, voice tone, body gestures, and content of staff member's statements to the patient. The interviews covered ward treatment culture, ward organization, performance ratings on the staff members participating in the study, views on what constitutes counter-therapeutic emotions in staff, and desires for data feedback from the study.
