Knowledge displays: Soliciting clients to fill knowledge gaps and to reconcile knowledge discrepancies in therapeutic interaction.
OBJECTIVE
To examine knowledge displays (KDs), a practice by which Therapeutic Community (TC) professionals exhibit previous knowledge about their clients' circumstances and experiences.


METHODS
Conversation analysis is used to examine 12 staff-led meetings recorded in Italy (8 in a drug addiction TC; 4 in a mental health TC).


RESULTS
The TC professionals use KDs within broader sequences of talk where they solicit their clients to share personal information and where the clients provide insufficient or inconsistent responses. In these circumstances, the staff members employ KDs to pursue responses that redress emerging knowledge gaps and discrepancies regarding the clients' experiences or circumstances.


CONCLUSION
KDs allow the staff members to achieve a balance between respecting their clients' right to report their own experiences and influencing the ways in which they report them. KDs help to reinforce the culture of openness that is central to many forms of therapeutic interaction, to forward the therapeutic agenda and to expand the staff members' knowledge of the clients' experiences and circumstances.


PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
KDs can be used to solicit clients to share personal information. This paper illustrates core features that underlie the function of KDs (where they are used and how they are constructed).
['Pino|Marco|M|']
D000328:Adult D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel D003142:Communication D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice D006801:Humans D001523:Mental Disorders D008603:Mental Health D008875:Middle Aged D010817:Physician-Patient Relations D019966:Substance-Related Disorders D013808:Therapeutic Community
Knowledge Therapeutic community Conversation analysis Addiction Mental health