A Day in the Life …: … of Millfields

I want to offer some reflections on the closure of the Millfields Unit, prompted by the recently edited volume by Celia Taylor and Brittni Jones (2026), drawing on my experience of working there as an external consultant to the staff support group as well as on my broader personal experience within therapeutic communities. My main point here is that the history of therapeutic communities includes many accounts of closure, indeed one could say that most therapeutic communities are closed down. The challenge, therefore, is to understand the dynamics that bring this about not least because, in most cases, the causal factor isn't treatment failure.

Whilst at Millfields I witnessed the attack on the staff support group from some of the nursing staff. I believe this came about because the nursing hierarchy, within the larger, more traditional psychiatric hospital site where Millfields was located, apparently allocated nursing staff to Millfields without any prior discussion regarding what was expected of staff in a therapeutic community (TC) or consideration with regards to whether or not they might wish to have this experience. In other words, during the run up to closure many of the nursing staff had no choice about being there. Much is written in the book about how demanding and challenging work with this client group can be and this is very well documented throughout with quotes from ex-patients. It is clear that this would be problematic.

However, the problem clearly didn't rest on the ward, rather it rested with the nursing hierarchy and indeed the interdisciplinary hierarchy within the hospital.

Attacks from outside the TC are, historically speaking, a familiar experience of therapeutic communities. How do we understand this? Is it simply too anxiety provoking to have a unit that gives disturbed and dangerous patients more freedom and authority in relation to their treatment? Or is it envy of the flattering attention that units like this attract from the external worl