therapeutic community
a setting for individuals requiring therapy for a range of psychosocial problems and disorders that is based on an interpersonal, socially interactive approach to treatment, both among residents and among residents and staff (i.e., community as method or therapy). The term covers a variety of short- and long-term residential programs as well as day treatment and ambulatory programs. The staff is typically multidisciplinary and may consist of human services professionals and clinicians providing mental health, medical, vocational, educational, fiscal, and legal services, among others. Originating as an alternative to conventional psychiatric approaches, therapeutic communities have become a significant form of psychosocial treatment. See milieu therapy. [developed by British psychiatrist Maxwell Shaw Jones (1907–1990)]