Katarina Jacobsson
Prefekt | Professor | FD | Docent i sociologi
“And how old are you?”: Age reference as an interpretative device in radio counselling
Författare
Summary, in English
Aim of study: Negotiations about problem definitions are a crucial part of psychotherapeutic and counselling work. In a conversation with a psychotherapist or a counsellor, the client's initial description of his or her trouble is transformed into an expert-informed problem formulation. This study aims to explicate how reasoning about troubles and life difficulties in a dialogue with a psychotherapist may be grounded in cultural knowledge about ageing.
Method and data: We draw upon ethnomethodology, and particularly on conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, to describe how age identities can be invoked in reasoning about explanations and solutions of psychological problems. The data consist of telephone conversations between a psychotherapist and people seeking help for their life difficulties on a Swedish radio programme.
Results: Our analysis shows how references to callers' age were used to position the callers as members of stage-of-life categories, in order to invoke expectations tied to the categories. The callers' positions in the life course served as an interpretative resource for negotiating understanding of the callers' troubles, and suggesting a normative description of their life situations.
Conclusion: This study explicates in interactional detail the interpretative use of cultural common-sense knowledge about the life course in the context of the specific institutional tasks of radio counselling.
Method and data: We draw upon ethnomethodology, and particularly on conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, to describe how age identities can be invoked in reasoning about explanations and solutions of psychological problems. The data consist of telephone conversations between a psychotherapist and people seeking help for their life difficulties on a Swedish radio programme.
Results: Our analysis shows how references to callers' age were used to position the callers as members of stage-of-life categories, in order to invoke expectations tied to the categories. The callers' positions in the life course served as an interpretative resource for negotiating understanding of the callers' troubles, and suggesting a normative description of their life situations.
Conclusion: This study explicates in interactional detail the interpretative use of cultural common-sense knowledge about the life course in the context of the specific institutional tasks of radio counselling.
Avdelning/ar
- Socialhögskolan
Publiceringsår
2016
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
31-43
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Journal of Aging Studies
Volym
39
Fulltext
- Available as PDF - 391 kB
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Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- Social Work
Nyckelord
- Radio counselling
- Age reference
- Life course
- Ethnomethodology
- Conversation analysis
- Membership categorisation
Status
Published
Projekt
- Negotiating problems and solutions in radio counselling
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0890-4065