The aim of the study is to yield understandings of the social and cultural determinants of the anger and hostility felt towards patients by the staff of child and adolescent psychiatric wards. It is proposed that an anthropological/sociological approach to this pervasive, destructive and little studied phenomenon will make an indispensible contribution to the long-term amelioration of the problem. The study examines the proposition that staff's feelings of anger and hostility towards patients arise mainly through losses of self-esteem which staff experience when they interpret the patients' behaviors to be disconfirmations of staff's ideal pictures of themselves. It is proposed that these ideal pictures, or """"""""role-identities,"""""""" are patterned within a ward and constitute an integral aspect of ward culture. The setting for the study will be two State child-and-adolescent psychiatric wards selected for having contrasting treatment ideologies. Ten staff informants in each ward will be intensively studied during three 10 week periods. Data collection includes systematic repeated observations of staff-patient interactions followed by depth interviews with the involved staff regarding the feeling states they experienced and the interpretations they rendered of the patient's behavior during the observed interaction. Similar interviews will be conducted regarding strong emotions which staff experienced during staff-patient interactions which they report to the interviewer. Other interviews will be conducted with staff specifically covering role-identities, vocabularies of emotions, vocabularies of motives, and relations with other staff and administrators. The analysis combines qualitative and quantitative methods.
