Residential institutions requesting supervision: a theoretical analysis of an empirically studied problem

This study was based on vague but persistent problems of uncertain origin permeating treatment and care in Swedish residential institutions treating emotionally disturbed and socially disadvantaged children. The purpose was to generate a reliable, empirically grounded theory, sufficient to describe and explain these problems, which were first observed in supervisory sessions. The main methods used were grounded theory ( Glaser & Strauss 1967 ; Strauss & Corbin 1990 , 1998 ) and abduction ( Peirce 1914/1990 ; Fann 1970 ; Josephson & Josephson 1996 ). During a three-year period, 17 respondents from three strategically chosen institutions were individually interviewed twice. The results suggest that artificial family institutions , enjoying family privileges , may develop out of family ideas . Under certain conditions, such institutions may be transformed into non-professional institutions that fail to carry out their official task, but that instead effect unconscious psychological tasks – tasks that are both hidden behind and obstruct the institution's official mission. The possibility of avoiding this development is dependent partly on the quality of the emotional content, called the need for reparation , within the institution, and partly on the methods used to control this need. This notion was tested in practice in a separate part of the study in which the method action-cum-research ( Trankell 1973 ) was used. One of the studied institutions was then observed for two years during a process of planned change in organization, treatment routines and attitudes. After two years, the final resistance to the official task had disappeared, and the former non-professional institution now worked in a task-orientated manner. This result has broad implications for planning and support of care institutions, as the same phenomena might arguably occur in any care organization.