Treatment Techniques in Corrections-Based Therapeutic Communities

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Because of the drugs, violence, and other aspects of prison life that militate against rehabilitation, the therapeutic community would appear to be the most appropriate form of drug abuse treatment in correctional settings. The therapeutic community is a total treatment environment isolated from the rest of the prison population. The primary clinical staff are typically former substance abusers who themselves were rehabilitated in therapeutic communities. The treatment perspective is that drug abuse is a disorder of the whole person—that the problem is the person and not the drug; that addiction is a symptom and not the essence of the disorder; and that the primary goal is to change the negative patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that predispose drug use. In Delaware's system of corrections-based therapeutic communities, a variety of treatment techniques are used, including behavioral, cognitive, and emotional therapies; transactional analysis; psychodrama; and branch groups. The clinical foundations and usages of these approaches are described at length, and preliminary data on their apparent efectiveness are presented.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: