Beyond neutrality: Professionals’ responses to clients’ indirect complaints in a Therapeutic Community for people with a diagnosis of mental illness
Issued Date: 22 May 2014
Abstract
Previous research has evidenced that in different institutional settings professionals are cautious when responding to clients’ indirect complaints and tend to avoid siding either with the clients/ complainants or the complained-of absent parties. In this article we use the method of Conversation Analysis to explore professional responses to clients’ indirect complaints in the context of a Therapeutic Community (TC) for people with diagnoses of mental illness in Italy. Although the TC staff members sometimes display a neutral orientation toward the clients’ complaints, as is the case in other institutional settings, in some instances they take a stance toward the clients’ complaints, either by distancing themselves or by overtly disaffiliating from them. We argue that these practices reflect the particular challenges of an institutional setting in which professionals engage with clients on a daily basis, have an institutional mandate of watching over them and are responsible for their safety. According to this interpretation, staff members’ nonneutrality toward clients’ complaints can be seen as a way of defending against the possibility, raised by the clients’ reports, that the staff members might be involved, albeit indirectly, in courses of action that have harmed or might harm the clients.
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Ruusuvuori, J. and Lindfors, P. (2009) Complaining about previous treatment in health care settings. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2415–2434. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.045
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Schegloff, E. A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Stokoe, E. and Hepburn, A. (2005) ‘You can hear a lot through the walls’: Noise formulations in neighbour complaints. Discourse and Society 16 (5): 647–673. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926505054940
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Crescentini, A., De Felice, F. and Tonzar, C. (2004) L’educatore e la riabilitazione psichiatrica [The Educator and the Psychiatric Rehabilitation]. Roma: Carocci.
Drew, P. (1998) Complaints about transgressions and misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3–4): 295–325.
Drew, P. and Walker, T. (2009) Going too far: Complaining, escalating and disaffiliation. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2400–2414. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.046
Heinemann, T. (2009) Participation and exclusion in third party complaints. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2435–2451. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.044
Heinemann, T. and Traverso, V. (2009) Complaining in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2381–2384. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.006
Heritage, J. and Maynard, D. W. (eds) (2006) Communication in Medical Care. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607172
Ijäs-Kallio, T., Ruusuvuori, J. and Peräkylä, A. (2010) Patient involvement in problem presentation and diagnosis delivery in primary care. Communication and Medicine 7 (2): 131–141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/cam.v7i2.131
Jefferson, G. and Lee, J. R. E. (1992 [1981]) The rejection of advice: Managing the problematic convergence of a ‘troubles-telling’ and a ‘service encounter’. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at work, 521–548. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jingree, T., Finlay, W. M. L. and Antaki, C. (2006) Empowering words, disempowering actions: An analysis of interactions between staff members and people with learning disabilities in residents’ meetings. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 50 (3): 212–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00771.x
Koshik, I. (2003) Wh-questions used as challenges. Discourse Studies 5 (1) 51–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14614456030050010301
Maynard, D. W. (1998) Praising versus blaming the messenger: Moral issues in deliveries of good and bad news. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3&4): 359–395. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3103&4_4
Robinson, J. D. and Heritage, J. (2005) The structure of patients’ presenting concerns: The completion relevance of current symptoms. Social Science Medicine 61 (2): 481–493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.12.004
Ruusuvuori, J. and Lindfors, P. (2009) Complaining about previous treatment in health care settings. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2415–2434. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.045
Schegloff, E. A. (1988) Goffman and the analysis of conversation. In P. Drew and A. J. Wootton (eds) Erving Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order, 89–135. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Stokoe, E. and Hepburn, A. (2005) ‘You can hear a lot through the walls’: Noise formulations in neighbour complaints. Discourse and Society 16 (5): 647–673. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926505054940
Voutilainen, L., Peräkylä, A. and Ruusuvuori, J. (2010) Professional non-neutrality: Criticising the third party in psychotherapy. Sociology of Health & Illness 32 (5): 798–816. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2010.01245.x
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