Planned Environment Therapy Trust

'...The Therapeutic Community as Educational Process'

Dr. Eric Broekaert is Professor of Special Education and Chair of the Department of Special Education at the University of Ghent in Belgium. He was co-founder of the therapeutic community De Kiem and the European Federation of Therapeutic Communities (EFTC). He is chairman of the European Workshop on Drug Policy Oriented Research (EWODOR) and the Orthopedagogical Observation and Treatment Centre Nieuwevaart, an institution for children with behavioral and emotional disorders. He is co-director of the Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations.

The Community of Communities is a quality improvement and accreditation programme for Therapeutic Communities (TCs) in the UK and overseas - an initiative of the Royal COllege of Psychiatrists' College Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI), working in partnership with The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities (TCTC) and the Planned Environment Therapy Trust (PETT).

The Community of Communities Annual Forum is the biggest gathering of its kind and enables people involved in therapeutic communities and environments to meet others in similar settings to reflect on practice, exchange ideas and support each other to meet the demands of modern Therapeutic Community practice. The Forum took place this year on May 2nd, in the Brunei Gallery of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

As the keynote speaker at the Annual Forum 2013, Prof. Broekaert challenged the dominant paradigm of therapeutic community as 'treatment', and proposed instead a paradigm based on 'education', with roots in the empirical research tradition of George de Leon and the approach to disturbed children and adolescents of Fritz Redl and David Wineman: Cutting through a variety of knots which have grown up around trying to fit the quart pot of therapeutic community experience and practice into the pint pot of evidence-based medicine.

The speech and discussion were recorded by PETT Archivist Craig Fees on behalf of the Community of Communities. It can be heard by arrangement at the Archive and Study Centre in Toddington, Gloucestershire, and will be appearing on the Community of Communities website in due course. 

Dartington Hall School (1926-1987) was one of the culturally richest and most exciting of the "therapeutic communities for normal children" (to use Albert Lamb's phrase) of the 20th century. Headmaster William Curry commissioned a modernist house for himself and his family in 1932 which is currently being managed by the National Trust, and which has a rich inner and outer life of its own (see "High Cross House"). During the course of 2013 the Heritage Lottery Fund is supporting an oral history project about the house and those who have had experience of it; and as a British Library/Oral History Society accredited trainer, PETT Archivist Craig Fees conducted a one-day oral history training there at the beginning of the week: Bringing together the worlds of progressive/democratic/alternative education which is part of the remit of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre, and oral history. 

The school is well documented on many levels - see the guide to the Dartington Hall School archives. But - just in the one day it became clear how much there is to be gained from exploring people's memories.

The oral history project is about the house, and not the school; but it will inevitably be about the community and communities which have known, used, and lived in the house over its many years and histories. And the people drawn in locally as volunteers for the project have a wide range of skills and associations which will enrich the intangible fabric of the house, and our understanding, inevitably, of the history and heritage to which Dartington Hall School belonged. A very exciting, scheduled to culminate in September with an installation based on the recordings.

A quick catch-up by Craig Fees

Things ought to be quiet in Toddington now that Chris and Gemma have "gone": The noise and laughter and focused cups of coffee of two ebullient members of the team ought to have left silence in their absence. But -

Chris herself spearheaded the first of the new "Art for Happiness" events, held on Saturday, April 6th. Facilitated by Val Andrews - with home made cakes à la Chris, lunch, and the first of our beautiful Spring days - creativity and even a bit of yoga reigned. "To sum up", said Chris, there was "lots of talking (covering lots of subjects!), lots of ideas, lots of creativity. Lots of eating and coffee drinking. Quirky moments and happenings, which turned out to be all right – well, more than all right in the end - which always seems to happen at PETT!" One of the participants wrote: " “I really enjoyed ‘playing’ with colour and different materials. Val created a really safe, open space and I felt happy and relaxed about exploring different ideas," while another fed back: “I found the course to be cleverly structured, giving me the scope to work on my own ideas in answering the questions that were put forward. I found the day inspiring.”

Even before that, we had a visit from Catherine Gundry, Vice Chair of the Association of Core Process Psychotherapists, and a former head of Kilworthy School who came to talk about future conferences and past experiences, and who we were able to surprise with letters she'd written to David Wills many years ago (the letters are undated; but David Wills died in 1981). She had forgotten the letters, and was reacquainted with an earlier self; and also discussed theory and practice with former PETT Director John Cross.

The following week - the week just passed as this is written - was filled with the noise of research and volunteering, with five in the place at one point. Angela Cobb helped Gill Connan catalogue and scan photographs Gill had given to the Archive so long ago that she'd forgotten the gift!; Sarah Hayes continued her research into the Harold Bridger Collection, using the Barbara Dockar-Drysdale desk as her private study carrel; and Pat Mitchell and Sam Doncaster of Wennington Old Scholars (with Wellie the Spinone on good form in the background) severally developing the Wennington School website and transferring ancient files from CD and DVD to the Archive's hard-disk based digital storage and retrieval system. This immensely productive three days was followed by a fourth, when Chris Beedell's son Jon (of "Desperate Men Theatre Company" fame - "the UK's longest-running street theatre company", the archives of which have just gone to the University of Bristol Theatre Collection) braved the visiting Children's Section of TCTC, meeting in the Centre's main room, to deliver a generous bequest from the late Chris Beedell, to pick up some of Chris's things, and to inspire. A phone call from Bryn Purdy, coiner of the term "eutopy"...

Not to mention a day at the Retreat, in York, for the first meeting of the Independent Advisory Group of the new (opening in July) East Villa Therapeutic Community. What an inspiring day, meeting the new therapeutic team, and the Management Committee, and fellow members of the IAG, with Marya Hemmings - Service and Development Manager - introducing us to their brilliant new facility, and the immense amount of work and connections being made. Shades of Maxwell Jones and the scent of new ways of working being forged.

But of course even in all of that activity there is a silence lone-working archivists are used to; the rustling of archives in a solar wind, memory's infinite company.

As an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, I am currently working on a three year research project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, which investigates the impact of the workplace environment on the health of workers.

In particular, my work focuses on the organisation of the industrial workplace in the late twentieth century, both in terms of the physical design and layout of factory work spaces and also the organisation of company structures and tasks. Historical analysis of this particular subject highlights the impact that the design of the workplace had, not just on the physical health of workers, but, more significantly, on their mental and emotional well-being. One of the main issues to emerge from this project has been the primary role played by psychological theories and methodologies in shaping the design and layout of factories in the second half of the twentieth century.

In this, the PETT archives are proving of great value as they contain personal papers relating to the work of key figures working in the field of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis in the post-war period, and whose ideas greatly influenced the organisational strategies of industrial managers running some of the largest industrial manufacturing companies in the UK. One of the most significant figures in this field was British psychoanalyst Harold Bridger (1909-2004), whose collection of personal papers are held at the PETT. Bridger was one of the founding members of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, and a key member of the post-war British Psychoanalytic Society. After receiving training and supervision by such eminent figures as Melanie Klein, John Rickman and Paula Heimann, Bridger developed his psychoanalytic theories working alongside colleagues including Wilfred Bion, Donald Winnicott, Siegfried Foulkes and Thomas Main. Drawing on his experiences in the army in World War Two, Bridger was particularly interested in the human condition within group and organisational contexts. His focus was on the dynamics of the group, and the impact that a group context had on the internal processes of the individual. This work resulted in him being a key pioneer of ‘Therapeutic Community’ approaches.

Ultimately, Bridger applied his experiences of therapeutic communities directly to an industrial context, working with large international organisations including Unilever, Lyons, Philips and Shell. He was particularly influential in introducing innovative approaches to management selection, and his methodologies are still dominant within industry today.  Insight into the nature of his relationship with these multi-national companies, and the extent of his influence, are evident amongst the many files maintained at the PETT. Alongside the documentary sources, the archive also contains a number of audio recordings which are of great value for historians. In one of these, Craig Fees was able to record a fascinating interview with Harold Bridger, prior to his death in 2004, in which he describes his personal journey to becoming an analyst and the key influences on his later thinking and approaches. Well worth a listen for anyone interested in the history of psychology and psychoanalysis, and for those wanting to hear a first-hand account from one of the greatest figures in these disciplines.

Dr Sarah Hayes