The paper suggests that therapeutic communities have goals and characteristics which are in conflict with the motivation of their staff and patients. The nature of these conflicts is examined and their effect on decision-making processes is outlined. It is suggested that these conflicts are valuable therapeutic material but if they are ignored the community becomes trapped in a flow of anti-therapeutic double messages.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.