Raising adults as children? A report on milieu therapy in a psychiatric ward in Norway.
Milieu therapy is widely used as a therapeutic approach in psychiatric wards in the Nordic countries, but few studies exist that report on what practices a milieu therapy approach implies as seen from an ethnographic perspective. Therefore, there is a need to obtain insight into how milieu therapy unfolds in a psychiatric ward setting. The present ethnographic study aims to explore this in a locked-up psychiatric ward that was tied to a psychodynamic-oriented milieu therapy approach. Metaphors from traditional nuclear family life were widely used. Patients were often understood as harmed children and were taught self-management skills; the staff aimed at providing a caring atmosphere; and the patients seemed to behave, sometimes, in a childlike manner. In a Foucaultian framework, milieu therapy can be seen as a therapeutic normalization technique used to produce self-governing individuals. Milieu therapy "raises" patients in order to transform patients' odd behaviour and nonconforming lifestyles. We see this "raising children" approach as a type of intervention that nicely connects to the national policy of normalization and integration politics towards persons with psychiatric diagnoses.
Oeye
Christine
C
Stord/Haugesund University College, Hordaland, Norway. christine.oye@hsh.no
Bjelland
Anne Karen
AK
Skorpen
Aina
A
Anderssen
Norman
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D008884:Milieu Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D009664:Norway; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult