ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the methods used by members of that particular organisation to make sense of their situation, their daily routines, the forms of therapy being undertaken, and the problems of patients. It considers some of the ways in which the staff and patients negotiated the boundaries of their relationships. The chapter describes how deviant behaviour was defined and categorised within the context of perceived emotional and/or psychiatric disturbance, and how distinctions were made between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. After brief introductions to psychiatric adolescent units, and to the research methodology of the study, the issues surrounding confrontation, controls and consequences within this particular organisation are considered. The chapter describes the means by which the Unit ethos attempted to define acceptable behaviours, attitudes and emotional responses of adolescent patients. All behaviours could be portrayed as symptomatic of underlying emotional disturbance, or intrapsychic dysfunction, and any item may have been analysed in contrasting, even contradictory ways, by different members of staff.
