Empowered and self-managing users in methadone treatment?

Abstract

Empowerment is a keyword in treatment. Users should have the means and possibilities to influence their treatment and become self-managing. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish methadone treatment project, we find that the practices of users and staff are often not carried out in accordance with governmental intentions. We identify a gap between the official notions of treatment and practices. We analyse the notions and practices of empowerment by applying two analytical perspectives. First, we apply a constructionist perspective in which empowerment is analysed as wanting to set users 'free' but also as ways to govern. We elaborate the analysis by applying a more practiceoriented focus. Drawing on this perspective, we analyse the ways in which staff and users constantly produce, construct and negotiate institutional practices that differ from the governmental intentions for treatment.Empowerment er et nøglebegreb i nutidig behandling. Brugere skal have midler og muligheder for indflydelse på deres behandling, således at de kan blive selvforvaltende. Med udgangspunkt i et etnografisk feltarbejde på et dansk substitutionsbehandlings projekt, analyserer vi hvorledes brugeres og medarbejderes praksis ofte ikke er overensstemmende med statslige politikker på området. Det vil sige, at vi identificerer en diskrepans mellem officielle forestillinger om behandling og praksis. Vi analyserer disse forskellige forestillinger og praksisser ved at applicere to analytiske perspektiver. Først anvender vi et konstruktivistisk perspektiv, hvorigennem empowerment på den ene side analyseres som et forsøg på at ''frisaette'' brugere af velfaerdsstatens institutioner, og på den anden side også kan ses som måder at regere disse borgere på. Dernaest udbygger vi analysen ved at applicere et mere praksisorienteret perspektiv. Ved at inddrage dette perspektiv, analyserer vi de forskellige måder, hvorpå brugere og medarbejdere kontinuerligt producerer, konstruerer og forhandler institutionelle praksisser, der adskiller sig fra politiske intentioner for behandling.

Desistance and the micro-narrative construction of reformed masculinities in a Danish rehabilitation centre

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Researching Organisational Imbrications and Interstices

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Officers and Drug Counsellors: New Occupational Identities in Nordic Prisons

“…The present community-based drug treatment in the Nordic countries entails elements of control (Dahl 2007). However, it is often of a more implicit form (Bjerge and Nielsen 2012). In this way, PDT, with its cocktail of control, discipline, care and therapy, may appear stricter and more disciplining than community-based drug treatment.…”