A therapeutic frame shields public service workers from personal responsibility for client outcomes.

Evidence

A substantial addition to understanding the attraction of the medical milieu in education, corrections, and other fields may be gained by recognizing the ways in which the introduction of a therapeutic milieu contributes to simplifying the goal orientations of public service workers. It provides a defense against personal responsibility of the worker by resting responsi- bility for clients in their physical or psychological development. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1091

Categorization

• DEFINE: Identifies responsibility-deflection as a core function of institutionalized therapeutic ideology in street-level work.
• XREF: connects to: Clients blame individual workers, not the structural decisions workers must absorb. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1327

Broader Connections

• Clients blame individual workers, not the structural decisions workers must absorb. #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1327