ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors provide a fairly short historical account of the development of therapeutic community techniques, which will offer a wider context for their own work and be of some interest to readers who may be unfamiliar with the many different branches of the therapeutic communities movement. Over the centuries the practice of boarding pilgrims in the town slowly changed from temporary makeshifts to permanent arrangements negotiated between the individual families in the town and the kin of the boarders, and overseen by the local church canons. Chronologically, the next development in the growth of therapeutic communities was the foundation of the Camphill movement in 1938 by the Viennese general practitioner Karl Konig. By the time of Konig’s death in the 1966 expansion had become rapid. Most of the income of the communities came from fees from the children’s local authorities.
