Therapeutic Communities Special Collections: What Are Therapeutic Communities?

The autocratic therapeutic community (TC) model in the United States emerged from controversial origins, including a California cult called Synanon. Subsequent residential therapeutic communities inspired by Synanon were characterized by their peer-led, confrontational therapy sessions; drug-free living environments; and hierarchical systems of therapeutic labor in which residents earned increasing responsibility as they recovered from drug or alcohol addiction. Therapeutic communities have been lauded for fostering a promising social model of addiction recovery; they have also been home to documented cases of therapeutic abuse.

The Therapeutic Communities Collecting Project at UK Libraries seeks materials that record the institutional histories, legal battles, and resident experiences of therapeutic communities across the United States from the 1970s to the present. If you have diaries, letters, records, photographs, audiovisual materials documenting Therapeutic Communities in the United States and are interested in donating them to the project please consider donating them.

Find out more on the SCRC Collecting Initiatives webpage.