Editorial

Citation

Pearce, S. (2013), "Editorial", Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 34 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/tc.2013.62034aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Volume 34, Issue 1

In this issue we are delighted to present an updated version of a seminal paper by Rex Haigh (1999), originally published as “The quintessence of a therapeutic community”. One of the most cited papers in recent TC literature, it was originally published as a book chapter. Rex Haigh has substantially rewritten the paper, and updated it in light of more recent developments. As TCs enter a phase of renewed interest in their effectiveness and active elements, Haigh’s theoretical structure provides a useful starting point for theoretical and practical investigations.

Gholab and Magor-Blatch present an addition to the literature on predictors of successful treatment for addiction. In a modified TC for addictions, they administered an anonymous questionnaire to a group of clients and have identified a statistically significant link between severity of dependence and positive outcome, and have thus confirmed previous findings. Other associations between variables and outcome showed trends, and the authors have some suggestions for how to interpret these findings.

We publish a companion piece to Taylor et al.’s (2012) previous report from a cohort of men admitted to a high secure forensic TC for people with personality disorder and learning difficulties. They outline modifications to the normal forensic TC method to take account of this client group, including dealing with such problems as poor literacy and suggestibility. These ideas can be considered in mainstream TCs that take occasional members with low IQ.

Jones’s piece demonstrates a rising trend: implementing a manualised therapy within a therapeutic community framework, in this case mentalisation based therapy (MBT). MBT is currently used to treat people with borderline personality disorder, and Jones reports positive results when its implementation is held within a TC framework, and members are also given access to a service user led TC structure. The model is labelled MBT-TC, although the extent to which this approach varies from that employed in the original MBT trial (Bateman and Fonagy, 1999) is unclear, as the original paper does not include details of the day-to-day running of the unit in which what was then called psychoanalytically oriented partial hospitalisation was implemented. The paper demonstrates the possibilities and advantages of using TC techniques to enhance or augment manualised therapeutic approaches.

Steve Pearce