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What are the prerequisites and indications of the therapeutic community proper?
Author(s) -
Karterud S.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1988.tb05185.x
Subject(s) - therapeutic community , psychology , milieu therapy , personality disorders , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , personality , psychotherapist , psychiatric ward , psychiatry , therapeutic approach , term (time) , medicine , social psychology , disease , physics , quantum mechanics , pathology
— Is the therapeutic community model appropriate for short term psychiatric wards with catchment area responsibility and emergency obligations? A comparative study of group dynamics, measured by Group Emotionality Rating System and Group Focal Conflict Analysis within three different therapeutic community wards, revealed that the short term ward contained extreme fight/flight groups and pseudo‐groups unable to deal with the delegated responsibility presupposed by the therapeutic community model. The intermediate ward functioned fairly well, while the long term ward for psychotherapy of schizophrenia and personality disorders also functioned badly from a therapeutic community proper point of view. The author discusses these findings in light of previous literature and concludes that the therapeutic community proper is predominantly a treatment model relevant for personality disorders and severe neuroses, and not adequate for the multiplicity of emergency tasks facing a short term psychiatric ward.