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This study aims to raise awareness of the importance of the sociological aspects of therapeutic community work, including clarity about the nature of the task, the power of informal interactions between participants and the relevance of leadership.

Applying insights from historical research to present-day practice.

The Northfield experiments offer a number of insights into present-day practice of therapeutic communities and enabling environments. These include clarity about the task, the relevance of participant interactions outside of specifically therapeutic work and the importance of leadership.

The therapeutic community/enabling environments approach has relevance to a wider sector of society than solely the therapeutic. More attention needs to be paid to leadership issues in the therapeutic community movement, as well as the therapeutic power of the mutual support networks amongst those receiving care.

Through the lens of the Northfield experiments, this paper offers a broadening of the sociological nature of therapeutic community practice, arguing that the purpose is to enable greater social adaptability, thereby enhancing relationships and deepening our awareness of ourselves. Implicit in this perspective is the recognition of the power of non-formal interrelationships in the service as well as the importance of leadership. It is also suggested that our experience in this way of working has a value in other organisations such as work places or schools. However, to achieve this, we need to adapt our language appropriately.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight theoretical and clinical similarities between therapeutic communities (TCs) and group analysis (GA).

Literature review shows comparison of TC and group-analytic concepts with illustrative case material.

Findings reveal many similarities between TCs and GA, but also significant divergences, particularly in practice.

This paper provides theoretical basis for TC practice, and highlights the need for greater theorising of TC practice.

This paper highlights the importance of group-based treatment approaches in mental health.

This is the first paper to review the relevant literature and compare theory and practice in TCs and GA, highlighting their common roots in the Northfields Experiments in the Second World War.

This paper aims to tell something of the story of the “Hawkspur Experiment” (1936–1941), a therapeutic camp organised early in the modern history of therapeutic community as an intervention into the lives of young men who were viewed to be at risk of delinquency (Wills, 1967). Although it was to have a remarkable influence on group and therapeutic community practice and theory, the authors argue that its influence is not as well-remembered nor incorporated into contemporary therapeutic understanding and discussion as it should be.

This paper is a historical reflection based on systematic examination of the clinical and administrative records of Hawkspur Camp for men, and supporting documents held in the Planned Environment Therapy Archive. In addition, the authors use published primary and secondary sources.

Hawkspur Camp was a cross-disciplinary enterprise which brought together psychoanalytic thinking, social work, an interest in groups, political activism, a concern with the dynamics and working of democracy and the application of emergent social science methods. It was overtly an intervention into the criminal justice system but was also an intentional exploration of the therapeutic benefits of community living and of a “pioneering” lifestyle; a rigorous experiment in how psychoanalytic ideas might be used in group residential settings; and a politically grounded exploration of participative democracy as a fundamental therapeutic principle.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents the first findings from a systematic study of the records of Hawkspur Camp.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how psychoanalytic thinking can help therapeutic communities think about how the defence of psychic retreat can develop and take hold in the face of organisational transition and overwhelming loss.

This paper draws upon the paradigm of psychoanalysis and is a case study orientated by a participant/observer stance.

This paper posits that unless loss is worked through then perverse clinical cultures can develop including bullying and denial of reality.

This paper illustrates the unique selling point of therapeutic communities incorporating justice into the treatment frame. It also identifies that unless loss is emotionally worked through then it can become the ground soil in which perverse cultures can develop.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the evolution of discerning compassion and how it was used in the Ingrebourne Therapeutic Community.

This paper is derived from a PhD thesis which was researched through interviews and archival research. The fundamental finding was that the therapeutic community approach was almost unique in providing a structured approach to implementing discerning compassion.

The therapeutic community approach for discerning compassion, in which the response to distress aims to promote flourishing.

This paper offers a model that has implications on how care is delivered in other settings.

There is little literature that explores the role of compassion in therapeutic communities or in care environments of any form. The approach taken here places compassion in a historical and philosophical setting and contrasts it with the kindness expressed in traditional psychiatric care that promoted “tranquility”.

Adopting a sense of critical enquiry when examining historical sources, it is possible to gain a richer and broader sense of present practice. The aim of this study is to emphasise the importance of historical research to present practice in teasing out the different elements at work and how they developed. A core assumption is that our consciousness depends on our interactions with others.

This study is part of ongoing research into the historical background of the practice of discerning compassion. The methods used include archival research and the reading of primary and secondary literature.

In particular, it becomes clear that this way of working is always going to be problematic for political authorities as it promotes the questioning of accepted beliefs. This study emphasises that the core concepts underlying enabling community practice reach deep into the past and involve events not usually associated with the traditional histories of the approach. In particular, exploring outside of the traditional mental hospital background reveals a greater involvement of women than previously demonstrated. There are processes that have deep historical roots, the culture of enquiry, the benefits of mutual support and the understanding that people flourish better interacting with each other in a supportive and trusting environment rather than through coercion and instruction.

As with all historical research, this paper is limited by the resources available to examine particular events.

Recognition of the importance of historical enquiry as relevant to present-day practice.

Historical enquiry helps to acknowledge the importance of social events in shaping our present understanding. As W.H. Rivers argues, we have to understand what happened in the past before comprehending why present sociological events occur.

This paper is a unique enquiry into the early historical antecedents of enabling community practice. It is intended to stimulate more research into the field and to stimulate debate about the relevance of particular aspects of practice. It refers to sources that are not usually part of such discussions and, by implication, suggests that there is more to be explored. It is not an exhaustive account and is to be supplemented by another paper on leadership.

A one-day conference organised by the University of Essex and the Consortium of Therapeutic Communities, 10 December, 2021 with the theme, “The Unconscious and Organisations”. Presentations and discussions throughout the conference had the aim of generating ideas and sharing knowledge about the unconscious and how this can inform practitioners working in therapeutic communities and other organisations meeting the challenge of emotional distress.

Interview with Professor Robert (Bob) Hinshelwood (RH), now 83 years old, who has been involved in therapeutic communities (TCs) since 1969, part of the initial founding of the Association of Therapeutic Communities in 1974, is presented. He qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1976. In 1980 he instigated the founding of the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities along with Nick Manning, David Kennard, Jeff Roberts and Barry Shenkar. In 1984 he founded the British Journal of Psychotherapy, and edited it for 10 years. He was Director of the Cassel Hospital 1993–1997. In 1999 he founded the journal Psychoanalysis and History. He was part of the Free Associations Group (founded by Bob Young and others) which ran the journal Free Associations, and with Mike Rustin and the University of East London, the “Psychoanalysis and Public Sphere” conferences in the 1990s. He has written a great deal about the dynamics of organisational cultures in complex settings. He is Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Professor Emeritus of the University of Essex. The interviewer was conducted by Dr Gary Winship (GW) is an associate professor at the University of Nottingham where he leads the MA in Trauma Informed Practice, visiting professor Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, and also visiting professor at the Russian State Humanities University, editor of the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities.

Hinshelwood reflects on the question of the unconscious and the impact of destructive tendencies on organisational process. He shares his personal experience being a young evacuee during the Second World War and considers the impact of trauma, losing his religion and his subsequent career choices in medicine, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He discusses his experience of supervision with Isabel Menzies Lyth and reflects on the different groups in the Institute of Psychoanalysis. He turns to the question tribalism in TCs and regrets that there had not been more bridge building and collaboration. He talks about his own prolific writing and publishing career which he describes as obsessional rather than passionate, and finally candidly reflects on the prospect of facing death.

The interview was transcribed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the necessary primary emotional development experiences for healthy personality formation.

The paper is a critical synthesis of psychoanalytic theory.

Five experiences are judged necessary for health “primary emotional development”: attachment, containment, communication, inclusion and agency. These can be deliberately recreated in therapeutic environments to form a structure for “secondary emotional development”.

The ways in which these qualities of a psychosocial environment can be produced are described.

Failure to recognise the importance of these qualities of an environment can cause unhealthy, or frankly toxic, psychosocial environments in various settings.

This is the author's original work, and has relevance for all psychosocial environments.

In the course of group analytic psychotherapy, where we discovered the power of the therapeutic effects, there occurred the need of group analytic psychotherapy researches. Psychotherapeutic work in general, and group psychotherapy in particular, are hard to measure and put into some objective frames. Researches, i. e. measuring of changes in psychotherapy is a complex task, and there are large disagreements. For a long time, the empirical-descriptive method was the only way of research in the field of group psychotherapy. Problems of researches in group psychotherapy in general, and particularly in group analytic psychotherapy can be reviewed as methodology problems at first, especially due to unrepeatability of the therapeutic process.

The basic polemics about measuring of changes in psychotherapy is based on the question whether a change is to be measured by means of open measuring of behaviour or whether it should be evaluated more finely by monitoring inner psychological dimensions. Following the therapy results up, besides providing additional information on the patient's improvement, strengthens the psychotherapist's self-respect, as well as his respectability and credibility as a scientist.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of democratic therapeutic community (DTC) for people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and psychotic disorder, namely the Group-Apartment (GA). The authors will describe it in more detail, discussing the ideas which lie behind it, considering the relative cost of treating people in larger residential DTCs and in GAs, outlining findings from the first data gathered on a GA and looking at the usefulness of this model in post-modern societies, with particular reference to Sicily.

In brief a GA is a flat, located in an urban apartment building, inhabited by a small group of people. In this paper the authors consider an apartment inhabited by a group of three or four patients with the presence of clinical social workers who work in shifts for several hours a day on all or most days of the week (Barone et al., 2009, 2010). GA is also inspired by the pioneering work of Pullen (1999, 2003), in the UK tradition of the apartment post TC for psychosis.

GAs in Italy have become one of the main methods of support housing in recovery-oriented treatment, because it allows the empowerment of the users and fights against the stigma of mental illness (Barone et al., 2014; Bruschetta et al., 2014). The main therapeutic activities provided in the GA depend on the type of recovery route being supported, on the level of autonomy being developed and on the level of participation in the democratic life of the local community.

GAs appear better, cheaper and a more appropriate treatment for mental problems in the current financial and social climate than larger institutions. Where they have been tried out, they have been found to be effective, by users and by stakeholders. They exemplify the advantages of the DTC for encouraging recovery, but cost less to run. In accordance with DTC principles, the social democratic process is used not only to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of GAs, but also to build a network to support the development of innovative mental health services and new enabling environments (Haigh et al., 2012).