ABSTRACT

This chapter examines a psychiatric inpatient unit for adolescents in a state hospital through the medium of group organization theory. The adolescent unit under observation consists of thirty patients between the ages of twelve and sixteen. The literature on adolescents has concentrated on the effect of peer group on the adolescent and on the problem of transition from the family to the larger social group. Three principles of social organization were differentiated. The first of these is that of group. The function of the other two principles is to organize the non-group behavior that was so predominant a feature of the treatment program studied. Staff is severely handicapped in sexual interaction with patients by a variety of social, legal and professional taboos. The experience of organizing a staff to deal with a difficult, perhaps impossible, continuously threatening task in an atmosphere of critical surveillance and high expectancy without adequate scientific knowhow is an education that should be shared.