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Hi
This is a discussion thread from the TC-OF list which I'm forwarding to the EFTC list because it is much more relevant to this list and people might want to comment. I'll be happy to act as a go between and send summaries of any discussion back to the TC-OF list.
Rowdy Yates
Senior Research Fellow
Scottish Addiction Studies
Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology Section
Department of Applied Social Science
University of Stirling
W: http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/sections/scot-ad/
T: +44(0)1786 - 467737
M: 07960 - 403392
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From: [log in to unmask] on behalf of Edmund McMahon
Reply To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 6:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TC-OF] International History of TCs
Dear List,
I have just rejoined the list after 'lurking' (grossly pejorative or not, I fear it describes me pretty well!) for a few years on the old ATC list, and I feel I should introduce myself. I have been fascinated to catch up on the exchanges regarding the history of mixed communities and the importance of the archive to the TC movement's collective memory.
My name is Edmund McMahon. I am a PhD student in History at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, completing a thesis on the history of community mental health in this country. One of the first things to kindly my interest in this topic (in which I have no expertise whatever) was coming across the archival papers of Neville Yeomans, a psychiatrist who pioneered TC on the democratic/Maxwell Jones model in Australia from the 1950s onward. This led me to the ATC list, and to the 2002 WFTC conference in Melbourne (also, sadly, as a lurker... as an outsider it is hard to offer much more.) So I can personally vouch for the vital importance of archives!
Writing a chapter on the (to my eye comparatively radical) TC that Yeomans established, and tracing the subsequent trajectory of the idea in Australia (including a disastrous experiment in Townsville that ended in scandal in the 1980s) has got me interested in the parallel evolutions, cross-pollination, mutation of the therapeutic community across the world over the past 60 years. How did the networks work? I know that a number of TC pioners visited Australia on lecture tours, etc. and a number of Australian mental health workers visited the communities of Jones and others. What about in other parts of the world?
This interest sort of got submerged by other things, but I recently, serendipitously, discovered that I am going to be living in Cheltenham for most of next year. So I feel like I can't pass up the opportunity that fate has put in my way to get into the archive and find out some more about the international diffusion of TC ideas.
So I suppose the purpose of this message is to send a balloon up in the hope of tapping the collective wisdom of the list. I would be very grateful for any suggestions or observations: some names to look up, some personal anecdotes, some references to any existing research (I know that this is an area that many people have thought and written a lot about).
Craig has already given me some good leads which I am beginning to follow up here. I would be very grateful to hear from anyone else who has studied this history - or been part of it!
Cheers,
Ed
Yours sincerely,
Edmund McMahon
PhD Candidate
School of History
The University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
NSW 2052
Ph: 02 9385 2946
Fax: 02 9385 1251
Therapeutic Community Open Forum
Created in December 2004 for all in the therapeutic community movement worldwide for the discussion of matters of concern or common interest.
Sponsored and promoted by the following organisations.
Association of Therapeutic Communities (ATC)
Planned Environment Therapy Trust (PETT)
Community of Communities (COC)
Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities (CHG)
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