ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to find an adequate conceptual basis for a comparison of seven different therapeutic communities in which we have conducted participant observation work. Therapeutic communities have been established in a wide variety of locales, and have employed a variety of models of practice. In every community the competent community member has the ability to invest any and every mundane activity with a therapeutic potential, although the actual content of the redefinition may vary from community to community. The various conceptualisations of therapeutic work that can all be used as interpretive schemes for the data extracts. In Sharp’s view ‘social control and the logic in use of the therapeutic paradigm systematically interrelated’. The reflexive character of therapeutic work has been partly prefigured by the ethnomethodological approach and needs only summary treatment. Possibly in contrast to the clinical gaze, interpretation in therapeutic work is differentially extensive and specific.
