title: [Elements for an history of the therapeutic community in Western psychiatry of the 2nd half of the 20th century].
abstract: Based on a critique of the traditional ruling of mental hospital, therapeutic community is an innovative model elaborated in Great Britain during World War II. According to this approach, all the relationships at work inside the institution have a big impact on the patients' state. One of the favoured tools of the therapeutic community lies in regular meetings common to patients and staff, but also reserved to professionals. During these sessions small and big problems are intended to be discussed and resolved collectively. The constitution of this approach as a model and its diffusion in continental European psychiatry during the second half of the 20th century is described in this paper. Four stages are distinguished: the genesis, the constitution of a distinct approach and diffusion in Continental Europe, the radicalisation and criticism by the antipsychiatric movement, the institutionalisation and decline.
authors.affiliation: Catherine Fussinger, Institut universitaire d'histoire de la médecine et de la santé publique, I. chemin des Falaises, CH-1005 Lausanne Catherine.Fussinger@chuv.ch
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fussinger
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D013808:Therapeutic Community; D006113:United Kingdom