The Politics of Trouble in an Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital

Abstract

Trouble and the response to it by staff at an adolescent psychiatric hospital are interpreted as a form of micropolitics. The response to trouble is structured by the everyday social control and other activities of the institution and, therefore, varies with the level of staff involved. The micropolitics of trouble takes place within a more general macropolitical context, of which continual documentation is the most proximate feature. The handling and documentation of trouble within the institution is constrained by third party insurance requirements, provisions of mental health legislation, and the economics of bed space in private social control institutions. Psychiatric language and diagnoses form the symbolic link between the micro- and macropolitics of trouble.