Aims: It is the goal of this study to investigate the first development of the drug-free therapeutic community (TC) in Europe. The paper aims at systemizing information, scattered all over Europe and is the first stage in an ongoing study to record the development of the European TC movement and its influences. Design: After a study of the grey (hidden) literature, TC pioneers and experts per country were contacted to further elaborate the first findings. Subsequently, a preliminary summary of our findings was published in the Newsletter of the European Federation of Therapeutic Communities (EFTC), inviting additional information and corrections. The authors completed the results for this article with relevant first-hand information, obtained through interviews with European pioneers. Findings: The findings are summarized under three topics: chronology, interconnections and European identity. It was found that from 1968 until 1989, a new therapeutic approach arose all over Europe, modeled after Synanon, Daytop and Phoenix House, New York, through Phoenix House, London and Emiliehoeve in the Netherlands. Therapeutic communities were established in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland as well. These communities were closely-knit and interconnected in their reaction against psychiatric and methadone treatment. The European TCs developed an own identity compared to the American ones. Conclusions: The European TCs adapted the model of their American predecessors to their own culture, influenced more by milieu-therapy and social learning. Instead of harsh behaviorism, more emphasis was placed on dialogue and understanding. Professionals occupied a more pivotal role and took over the dominant position of ex-addicts. Research, executed by TC professionals gradually entered the TC. A generic network of TC connections, through which the development evolved, was uncovered, and clear regional trends can be observed.

BackgroundThe corrections-based therapeutic community (TC) is one of the most described

Following the establishment of the so-called “New British System” (based on the recommendations of the Rolleston Committee in 1926), numbers of recorded opiate and cocaine addicts fell significantly in the early 1930s and remained stable and at a relatively low level for the next two decades. It was in the latter part of the 1950s that reports of a new drug “epidemic” began to circulate. Concerns centred on the use of drugs by ethnic minorities, notably black West Indians and Africans in ‘blues clubs’ and visiting black American musicians in jazz clubs. Once again the drugs epidemic was associated with jazz (“jungle”) music and colour. By the end of the 1960s, young white teenagers had become involved too and the world had seen the student riots in Paris; the birth of Swinging London with its attendant Merseybeat; the hippy revolution in San Francisco; and a growing youth protest, both in the USA and Britain, over western military involvement in Vietnam. Politicians and journalists invariably associated these events with the use of drugs by young people. Over the last four decades of the 20th Century, the use of drugs by young people (and the attendant treatment industry) has grown exponentially and the focus has moved from individual treatment to public health and infection control to the current preoccupation with drugs/crime connection. This brief history attempts to summarise these developments in a short article chronicling the major milestones and events

In both Scotland and England, the current drug strategies (HM Government, 2008;Scottish Government, 2008) have demonstrated a clear commitment to an integrated recovery-oriented model of treatment for drug problems, which represents a significant change in focus toward a more person-centered and individualized philosophy for the delivery of drug treatment in the United Kingdom. This change has met with some resistance from a range of professionals in the United Kingdom, and the purpose of the article is to make explicit these concerns and objections, classify them, and examine their foundations. A group of UK academics, policymakers, and practitioners, who met under the auspices of the UK Recovery Academy, agreed to collate a list of objections to the viability of recovery approaches in the addiction field and to assess the merits of each concern. This process resulted in a total of 26 objections that are reviewed. The article concludes with an overview of the questions remaining unanswered in the United Kingdom and an assessment of the position of the "recovery movement" in the UK addictions field.

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