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The adult ideology as practical reasoning : a study of child psychotherapy

University of British Columbia

The 'topic' for this thesis was formulated after many months of doing field work-in a clinic offering play therapy to disturbed children. I was struck by the fact that the organization of activities, the therapy talk, and the therapist's explanations appeared from the beginning to be common-sensical, transparent, reasonable. I take this reasonableness as the 'topic' and ask how it was possible for me, on the basis of talk heard in the setting, to discover and describe the rationality of the setting— see events, etc., as instances-of-a-pattern-of-behavior, and concomitantly how therapists were able to make their work appear rational. The data consists of my experience in the setting and more specifically of the talk located in that setting. This formulation clearly locates this thesis in an emerging body of literature which treats the researchers achievement of making sense as the subject of inquiry. It is a study of practical reasoning, by which I mean to emphasize that psychotherapy accounts were tied to the everyday practises of therapists in ways that are not captured by idealizations of theoretical accounts, etc. An overlooked feature of those accounts are background expectancies, i.e., those taken-for-granted views of the world that enable us to see the adequacy of accounts, reasonableness of explanations, etc. It is proposed that it is our taken-for-granted views of 'children' as social actors which accomplishes this in the field setting. This is referred to as an adult ideology of childhood and this notion is explicated in relation to the therapy activity. Considerable detail is given on the use of one feature of the ideology, the relevance of families in relation to children. The adult ideology is offered as an interpretive schema which allows adult actors to continuously make sense of, manage, organize for, talk to children. It is claimed that this is an omni-present schema in the setting, that, in fact, it supports what is referred to as the psychiatric interpretive schema. It is demonstrated that it is not simply used to explain patient behavior but it is a device for managing relationships (showing competence), handling conversations (saying what has to be said), explaining relapses and therapy decisions, and so on. It is then proposed that the adult ideology be seen as a solution to my practical task—it enabled me to make sense of the actions, accounts, explanations of the therapists. Presumably the psychiatric interpretive schema allows therapists to make sense of patients. The two schemas are not substitutes for one another then but are responsive to different tasks in the setting. We are looking at occasioned accounts—treating children, and understanding therapists. The claim for the explanatory power of the adult ideology in the setting is then withdrawn. It is still claimed however that the adult ideology is a feature of our social world and the explication offered here should be seen as a substantive 'discovery'.

Text

2010-02-08

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/19766

Sociology

University of British Columbia

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