This paper seeks to provide an ethnographic description of the processes involved in constructing a deviant status and may best be seen as making a modest contribution to what has been described elsewhere as the micro politics of trouble and its resolution. Specifically I shall describe the situation of one handicapped child (Linda) resident within a Rudolf Steiner Therapeutic Community. In addition to focusing upon the various ways in which staff accounted Linda as a ‘troublesome child’ I shall examine their various attempts to cope with the sorts of difficulties they saw her as presenting. As well as focusing upon the ways in which staff sought to cope with Linda I shall also describe their attempts to develop a therapeutic relationship with her.
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