Sharing one's experiences is a crucial activity in group therapies. In such therapies, groups can be either constituted around one problem or goal common to all the clients, or the group can work as a place in which clients can learn from one another and share experiences whether their individual problems are similar or not. Almost all (psycho)therapy types have a group application, and groups are assumed to be rather efficient in psychological progressing (see, e.g. Corey, 1986; Wootton, 1977). In this article I will concentrate on one type of group therapy, namely the Minnesota model group therapy for addicts, and examine how the clients share experiences and, especially, how they construct their experiences as typical or identifiable. First, I will briefly introduce the ideology, therapeutic goal, and practices of Minnesota model group therapy. Then I will show that the dynamics of talking in a group seem to direct the participants to orient towards each others' stories as a template in which to fit their own experiences. The core of this article is a detailed analysis of how therapists use variation of person reference terms as a linguistic device to construct the experiences of the participants as typical of addicts. The therapeutic goal of identifying with each other The theory of Minnesota model therapy, also called 12-step treatment, is based on the ideology of Alcoholics Anonymous (see, e.g., Mäkelä et al., 1996, pp. 194-196). The cornerstones of the theory are: (1) addiction is a disease from which one can recover only by choosing complete abstinence and joining AA, and (2) the disease has to be recognized and accepted by the clients themselves. (For the AA ideology, see Mäkelä et al., 1996, pp. 117-132.) These two views are to be taught to the clients in four weeks, which is the time of clinical treatment. Unlike in AA, the clients in the clinic are usually not voluntary but are sent there, for instance, by their employer. Clients often resist the diagnosis of addiction, which is why confronting the clients with the facts of their lives and ways of speaking is seen as being crucial in this therapy (see, e.g.,

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In Minnesota treatment, the therapists aim at breaking clients' denial to encourage them to accept their addiction. However, the confrontation is risky since, instead of making the patient ready for a change, it may strengthen resistance against the diagnosis of addiction and the treatment recommendations. We will explore the role of laughter in confrontational practices. The study is based on conversation analysis of group therapy sessions in an inpatient addiction treatment clinic in Finland (7.5 hours of data altogether). The laughter prevails in three different kinds of practice: laughing off the troubles, strengthening the confrontation by laughing at the patient, and ameliorating the confrontation. Laughter is a flexible device for preventing or resolving the possible risks of confrontation.

In this article, we examine the hierarchization of international students by bringing together perspectives of linguistic legitimacy and language ideologies. Our data stems from 26 accent reduction (AR) or accent modification (AM) course descriptions and websites from US universities. Based on their analysis, we discuss the socio-political implications of the phenomenon of these courses for international students and the ways in which language-based, particularly accent-based, arguments are used to create or reinforce different categories of students. We argue that while international students are presented as having different kinds of “comprehensibility problems” that AM/AR courses are claimed to remedy, the seemingly linguistic arguments that are used for marketing do not hold. Rather, what is presented as an accent issue actually seems to be an ideological one, drawing on the students’ ethnic or geographical origins, and thereby racializing the question of language proficiency.

In this article I study how the life stories of patients are used as evidence in the diagnosis of addiction in Minnesota model group therapy. As part of this therapy, patients have to tell their life story, concentrating on their substance abuse. This story is used by the therapists as a means for getting patients to recognize and accept that they are addicts. For this purpose the therapists use intervening questions. This article concentrates on the placement and the structure of the patients’ responses to these interventions and the kinds of attitudes or standpoints the patients express. I will also discuss ways in which the theory of the Minnesota model informs the therapists’ actions by analysing the places within the patient's story where the therapists choose to intervene and the structure of their intervening turns. The data of the study consist of five 45-minute group therapy sessions and three multi-professional team meetings in a Finnish inpatient clinic. The therapists pose questions when the patient has said something that clearly hints at a symptom of addiction. The questions are designed as (disjunctive) yes/no questions which offer to the patient two alternative formulations of their talk to choose from. The first alternative hints at less problematic use of alcohol, and the latter, often an only implicit alternative, hints at more problematic consumption. This order offers to the patient an opportunity to choose the less problematic version in a preferred manner – if they are to display themselves as not having more problems with consumption than anyone else. The therapists can, then, use the patients’ responses to monitor how they have adopted the treatment and the diagnosis of addiction, that is, whether they are resistant or compliant.