Attributing agency makes past actions accountable. If you choose to lie down, why did you choose inactivity? This provokes defensive responses from patients. Conversations spiral into frustrating circular patterns.

Agency-Accountability Link

Practitioners mark behavior as inadequately accounted for. "It's still not quite clear to me" implies pain alone doesn't explain inactivity. This subtly challenges the inevitability of patient's limitations. It creates space for alternative explanations.

Insufficient Explanation Framing

Patients use "if-then" structures to present actions as inevitable. "If pain is bad, then I must lie down" frames behavior as forced. This minimizes personal accountability for decreased activity. The pain, not the patient, determines the action.

Script Formulations

Calling in sick described as exception to normal conduct. Establishes baseline of good work ethic and responsibility. Prevents inference of malingering or lack of motivation. Positions patient as reluctantly disabled, not willingly inactive.

Breach Narratives

- Script Formulations
- Breach Narratives
- Insufficient Explanation Framing
- Agency-Accountability Link

State University of New York at Binghamton

- Agency Management: How agency  is attributed, resisted, and negotiated.
- Accountability Work: Managing responsibility and moral identity

Core Tension: Ability vs. Inability - The central discursive battleground of pain rehabilitation consultations

Lester, J. N. (Ed.). (2021). Discursive Psychology and Disability. Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Reference For: Discursive Psychology and Disability

- Willing But Unable Identity
- Agency Attribution
- Agency-Accountability Link
- Mind-Body Contrast Management

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