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This article presents results from a study of clients’ experiences of attending an opioid substitution treatment clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark. The study is part of a research project about the everyday lives of marginalized people who use drugs in Copenhagen, their risk environments, and their access to formal and informal resources. Thirty-eight clients participated in structured interviews, covering topics concerning drug use, income, housing, social relations, violence, and use of health and social services. A risk environment/enabling environment framework was developed to analyze the data. The study highlights the importance of including the drug scene that surrounds the clinic to understand the clinic as both an enabling, constraining, and risky environment affecting the clients’ everyday lives, their safety, health, and well-being. The study shows that the clinic gives the clients access to different material, social, and affective resources, but that access to resources often involves different trade-offs. For the clients, such trade-offs include balancing enabling and risky aspects of interaction with other clients or accepting constraints to get access to substitution medicine. Some clients accept such trade-offs, others do not and choose to find other ways to get resources, exposing themselves to potential harm. By paying particular attention to these trade-offs, this study provides a nuanced picture of the clinic’s dual role in both being a source of stability and a place that many clients associate with feeling worried and insecure.

Denne artikel undersøger interaktionen mellem deltagerne i gruppeterapi på en døgninstitution for alkoholmisbrugere. Dette sker med udgangspunkt i et analytisk begrebsapparat baseret på en sammentænkning af Foucaults magtanalytik (1982, 2008) og Goffmans rolleanalyse (1967, 1992). Begrebsapparatet muliggør analyser af magtudøvelser forstået som magtteknikker, der formes i ansigt-til-ansigt-interaktion. Tilgangen sætter fokus på mangfoldigheden i måderne, hvorpå magtteknikker og modstand udfoldes, ligesom der åbnes for analyser af magtens forskellige effekter. Tilgangen søger derved en nuanceret forståelse af, hvordan mennesker formes igennem specifikke magtudøvelser. Artiklens analyse undersøger gruppeterapien som en magtteknik, der er baseret på beboernes bekendelser. Analysen fremanalyserer tre bekendelsesformer, hvor magtteknikken udfoldes, og forskellige modstandsformer indgår. Bekendelsesformerne indebærer forskellige forsøg på at forandre klienterne. Afhængigt af klienternes modstandsformer varierer socialarbejdernes tilgang til bekendelsen mellem en positivt støttende og en konfrontativ tilgang. I forlængelse heraf demonstrerer artiklen, at modstandsformerne, der er rettet mod forskellige aspekter af bekendelserne, til tider begrænser bekendelsen som magtteknik til at forandre individet. Endeligt viser artiklen, hvordan klienterne, i kraft af deres måde at indgå i bekendelserne, skabes som subjekter på forskellig vis. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Kristian Fahnøe: Confessions in Group Therapy for Alcohol Abusers. An Interaction Based Analysis of a Power Technique This article explores group therapy at an inpatient treatment facility for alcoholics. Based on an analytical approach which combines Foucault’s work on power (1982, 2008) with Goffman’s interactionism (1967, 1992), it analyses group therapy sessions as a power technique that is shaped through the face-to-face interaction between the participants. The analytical approach entails an exploration of the various ways power techniques are exercised in practice and their resulting effects. As such, the approach provides a nuanced understanding of how individuals are molded through specific acts of power. The approach is also able to highlight the entwinement of power and knowledge. The analysis explores group therapy as a power technique based on confessions given by the clients. Focusing on three forms of confession, the analysis demonstrates how the forms of confession involve both acts of power and resistance. These forms of confession entail different efforts to change the clients in which the social workers’ involvements span from appreciative to confrontational. The acts of resistance target various elements of the confession and shape the exercise of the power technique. This means that clients are shaped as various subjects depending on how they engage in the confessions. Keywords: power, social work, substance abuse treatment, Foucault, Goffman.

ZusammenfassungDieses Projekt stellt die Frage, wie die COVID-19-Pandemie Prozesse der sozialen Inklusion und Exklusion von wohnungslosen Jugendlichen beeinflusst. Anhand von drei internationalen Fallstudien soll das Verständnis dafür verbessert werden, wie Pandemien die Risiken und die zugänglichen wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Ressourcen für junge Menschen mit Wohnungslosigkeitserfahrung prägen. Das Wissen, das in dieser vergleichenden Studie entwickelt wird, kann dazu beitragen, die Art und Weise zu verbessern, wie Organisationen der Wohnungslosenhilfe auf neue, veränderte oder verstärkte Probleme und Bedürfnisse von jungen wohnungslosen Menschen reagieren.

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