Social Process, Discourse, and Identity: Exploring the Experiences of Adolescent Males and Their Relationships with Child and Adolescent Service Providers

Orientation: This study explored the experiences of adolescent males and their relationships with child and adolescent service providers.;Research Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to explore social processes, identity, and discourse presented in accounts provided by adolescent males with severe and persistent social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in context to adolescent-service provider relationships.;Motivation for study: Adolescent males are over-represented in correctional systems and are reported to receive less supportive care when compared to adolescent females with similar behavioral and emotional challenges. Exploring the perspective and experiences of adolescent service providers become aware of and gain new perspectives on the effects of institutionalized practices that contribute to stigma and other unsupportive processes.;Research design, approach and method: The author explored adolescent experiences using a qualitative interviews with a sample of 12 adolescent males in a high-security juvenile treatment center. Analysis drew from constructivist grounded theory and discourse analysis methods.;Main findings: Participants identified three ways of self-understanding in context to therapeutic relationships which included being "Perfect", "Nothing/Nobody", or "Something/Someone-in-between". Relationships and discursive practice which were more personal and equal in nature functioned as mechanisms for participant social, emotional, and behavioral changes and the development of "someone" with both positive and negative qualities, who is deserving, able to learn, and able to imagine and practice positive new ways of being with service providers. Relationships and discursive practices which were established on enforced protocols, procedures, rules and consequences tended to position adolescents to avoid seeking help, disengage, and conceal. In addition, self-understanding became an endless cycle of striving to be "perfect" or giving up on a personal sense of being. The latter was represented by a sense of "nothingness" or worthlessness, resulting in habitually affecting treatment participation.;Implications: These finding may help adolescent service providers reduce stigmatizing interpretation of adolescent behavior, thus helping refine therapeutic strategies.;Contribution: This study contributes to the literature on understanding the social processes that occur between adolescent males and service providers and how they constrain or facilitate effective relationships, positive identity development, and change.