Editorial

Citation

Pearce, S. (2012), "Editorial", Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 33 No. 2/3. https://doi.org/10.1108/tc.2012.62033baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Volume 33, Issue 2/3

Welcome to a double issue of Therapeutic Communities (TC). We have assembled this issue of classic papers from older volumes of the journal that are not easily obtainable. This will make important papers available ahead of their routine digitisation, remind us of the contributions made by prominent colleagues in years gone by, and provide a resource of classic papers for current practice. I hope you enjoy it.

1980 was the year the journal was first published, and we have included three seminal papers from that year, by authors who either were or are now well known for their contributions to TC theory and practice. Rudolf H. Moos’ piece about environmental measurement applies an area of theory for which he is famous to TC environments. In “The seeds of disaster”, R.D. Hinshelwood gives a pithy description of leadership conflicts in TCs, a perennial problem when flattening of the authority pyramid is applied to clinical leadership as well as the treatment method. He draws some of his conclusions from the closure of Marlborough therapeutic community. Nick Manning’s paper draws on similar themes to conclude that crises and collapse in institutions almost always follow a failure of leadership. A much later paper by Richard Rollinson considers similar questions in a children’s TC, and the contributions of containment, authority and power to effective leadership in a TC. Together these papers are essential reading for those in positions of leadership in TCs in 2013 and beyond, particularly in considering the temptation to abrogate responsibility to the group, whether a staff group or the TC as a whole.

We have been lucky to be able to reprint some frequently cited but hard to obtain papers, which have become famous in the field. Among these is David Kennard’s paper on the “TC impulse”, originally published in 1989. This paper provides a history – and prehistory – of the TC movement, and a series of questions still debated in the field: what is the TC impulse? Is it fading, if so why, or have TC ideas and impulses entered the mainstream so comprehensively that our distinctiveness is more difficult to see? David Kennard along with Janine Lees was also instrumental in the early stages of constructing standards for TCs, later to lead to the quality assurance network the Community of Communities. We are reprinting the early work in this area in the form of the “Kennard and Lees Checklist”, originally published in 2001; a measure of how far things have come.

George de Leon is another giant of the field, and we are delighted to be able to reprint a 1983 paper “The next TC”, comparing drug free TCs (“new TCs”) with democratic or British model TCs (“old TCs”). He hoped for a closer working relationship, and for a new wave of TC practice incorporating elements of both.

Finally, we are reprinting another paper by R.D. Hinshelwood, “Therapy or coercion” from 1990. R.D. Hinshelwood provides a reflection on peer pressure – theoretical and anecdotal. TCs have sometimes been thought to work, at least partly, through peer pressure, a rather brittle and potentially destructive process upon which to build long term positive change. The paper provides food for thought, and in the present the debate continues (Pearce and Pickard, 2012).

Steve Pearce