Therapeutic management in the low-wage workplace

Area of Science:

• Sociology
• Workplace Studies
• Medicalization Studies

Background:

• Medicalization is a growing form of social control.
• Limited sociological research exists on workplace managers using medicalized practices.
• Therapeutic management is emerging in low-wage employment.

Purpose of the Study:

• Extend medicalization theories to low-wage workplaces.
• Investigate therapeutic management practices.
• Analyze how therapeutic management creates a compliant labor force.

Main Methods:

• Eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at Disability Works, a nonprofit job training program.
• Interviews with providers and advocates in the mental illness field.
• Analysis of therapeutic practices including therapy, psychiatry, mindfulness, and positive affirmations.

Main Results:

• Therapeutic management aims to instill work norms in employees' dispositions.
• It transforms systemic or structural problems into individual issues.
• Disability Works utilizes various therapeutic approaches to shape its workforce.

Conclusions:

• Therapeutic management is an emerging workplace regime.
• This practice functions as a form of social control.
• Findings inform future research on the effects of therapeutic management.