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A Refracted Reality of Everyday Life: The Constructed Culture of a Therapeutic Community
Author(s) -
Wiley Juniper
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1991.14.2.139
Subject(s) - ideology , sociology , everyday life , perspective (graphical) , charisma , therapeutic community , participant observation , aesthetics , consciousness , epistemology , psychology , isolation (microbiology) , social psychology , politics , social science , psychotherapist , visual arts , art , philosophy , theology , microbiology and biotechnology , political science , law , biology
Focusing on the charismatic authority of its Founder/ Director, the ideology, and formal social structure of a holistic therapeutic community for schizophrenics, this paper examines the process of reality construction in an alternative therapeutic milieu. Data was provided from a field work study involving Intensive participant observation over a two year period and open‐ended interviews. Within a phenomenological perspective, therapeutic work is viewed as a cognitive activity that not only redefines and transforms the meanings of everyday life but also one that in the process of redefining produces a peculiar cognitive style—a specific tension of consciousness—through a specific epochs. By virtue of this sustained bracket and a self‐consciously created culture the therapeutic community is seen as constructing its own version of reality and a peculiar social world.