The Therapeutic Community

Book excerpt: "The development of community methods of treatment implies the wider application of the social sciences, mainly sociology and anthropology, to existing psychiatric practice. War-time needs with the huge volume of psychiatric cases and relative shortage of psychiatrists gave a tremendous stimulus to social methods of treatment in psychiatry; but probably more important is the changing cultural pattern in Britain. It appears to us that, in this country at least, the community is to-day assuming social responsibilities which would not have been contemplated a generation ago. This growth of a social conscience goes much deeper than the political changes which have occurred during recent years, although these are themselves a manifestation of social change. This book is a report on the work of a unit which was organized to study and develop community methods of treatment. Many different factors led to its inception. The inquiry really started ten years ago when a trend towards group treatment and studies of the patient community-appeared in British psychiatry; these trends were developed by Army psychiatrists and psychologists and by the Emergency Medical Service of the Ministry of Health; the experiments at Mill Hill and Dartford (both Ministry of Health hospitals) which are briefly described in this book, were forerunners of the present Industrial Neurosis Unit at Belmont Hospital which was started in April 1947"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).