Building for Therapy

In recent years a maturity has become apparent in the views held about the provision of therapeutic environments. After the broadening realization which emerged in the early sixties of the pitfalls and destructive qualities of most institutional settings ( Goffman, 1961 ); after the excitement generated by various attempts at therapeutic communities ( Jones, 1952 ) and community based therapy in many areas of health care provision ( Jones, 1962 ), there was a period of great optimism in the possibility of greatly reducing or removing altogether the number of people who spend long periods of time in large medical or quasi-medical institutions. This optimism coincided with rapid improvement in medical practices, most notably through the use of antibiotics and subsequently the psychotrophic drugs. This change in attitude led to a recognition of the inadequacy of many existing buildings and the determination to use the new-found post war wealth to replace them with modern facilities, appropriate to a wide range of new therapeutic approaches.