Therapeutic Communities for addictions: history and future perspective

In the last two decades we have witnessed a considerable increase in the problematic use of psychoactive substances. The most relevant characteristics have been, namely: polydrug use; that is, although there is a drug of choice, all are consumed without any limit.

To this is added a decrease in the age of onset (approximately 12 or 13 years), encompassing all socioeconomic sectors, and genders. Given the notorious failures of classical approaches, therapeutic communities appear as a viable alternative to deal with this problem.

In this PsychologyOnline article, we talk about therapeutic communities for addictions: history and future perspective.

Index

1. Origin of therapeutic communities
2. What is a therapeutic community like?
3. Communities for addictions in Spain

The therapeutic community as a form of treatment emerged in the middle of the 20th century, to be more precise, in the decade of the 50s and is the result of a certain context, airs of change were breathed in many areas and psychiatry was no stranger. Antipsychiatry began to make itself heard questioning the previous treatments of serious mental illnesses, questioning the asylums where patients remained alien to the social, they were separated from society and their families These changes in some psychiatric hospitals leave their seeds that, years later, will germinate to form the therapeutic community for drug-dependent patients. Over the years, the communities for drug addicts have increased, as well as, the number of patients has increased since the 60s. To the extent that today there is a World Federation of Therapeutic Communities (WFTC).

Therapeutic Communities emerged in the 1960s as supportive treatment for an equal and self-help for drug use and dependence. They were created due to the lack of specialized medical, psychological and correctional centers for drug users to recover drug addicts and alcoholics. Various research studies (California Department of Alcohol and Drugs, 1994; Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 11, 1997) have suggested that Therapeutic Communities can be very effective in treating drug use.

Perhaps one of the things that stand out the most when introducing ourselves into the structure of a community of this type, is the great number and variety of daily activities that residents have. In general, there are one or two daily "therapeutic groups", to which are added activities such as physical education, some work tool learning activity (computing, trade workshops), some activity where the corporal prevails (spontaneous theater, etc.), which although they do not usually have a daily load, many times appear in a weekly. The day is regulated and its maximum usufruct is encouraged.

The addict has difficulty listening; then, in the meetings you should spend more than an hour listening to others. He has a strong inhibition of the affective and the corporal, for which he is offered spaces such as spontaneous theater where, necessarily, he must expose himself. Unlike other treatment modalities, Therapeutic Communities constitutes a “therapeutic environment”, whose daily regimen consists of structured activities and not structured and social interactions that develop in formal and informal situations and settings, and that constitute among all therapeutic interventions during the process.

Currently, the offer of assistance services for drug addicts is relatively wide, varied and well known. The choice of context and modality of intervention should be based on the demands of a treatment plan, the needs of the patient, and the characteristics of the services available.

In our country, the programs based on the therapeutic community model for drug addicts are relatively well consolidated, the Professionals accumulate years of experience with addicts and maintain a strong sensitivity to the need for change and adaptation of the programs of rehabilitation. Drug use and addiction is a complex social and personal problem.

It must be addressed with various interventions; Therapeutic Communities is not only a current model, it is the future. This is especially true for some patients with dual diagnosis as they are integrated into a structured and unstructured residential program, providing the tools for a change deep; in this way he breaks with a way of living (to be more precise, of escaping from life) for another way of living; In other words, formulating and formulating a viable life project in some cases, a very difficult task, especially when the death project is the one that governs, in a Therapeutic Community it is sought that the patient actively reintegrates into society, participating and not being a person apart from her.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Therapeutic Communities for addictions: history and future perspective, we recommend that you enter our category of Addictions.

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