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Residential therapeutic communities (TC) for substance abusers historically eschewed the use of professional psychiatric services (Judith Ryder, personal communication). However, in recent years TCs have begun to incorporate such services (i.e., psychotherapy) into their treatment programs because of the growing number of clients with comorbid psychiatric disorders who come for treatment (De Leon, 1997; O'Brien and Biase, 1984). The purpose of this article is to describe the utility of individual psychodynamic psychotherapy for clients in a residential TC, and to show that both mentally ill chemical abusers (MICA) and non-MICA clients can benefit substantially from it.
A growing body of clinical and empirical evidence demonstrates that individual psychodynamic psychotherapy can play a vital role in the treatment of substance abuse (Dodes, 1988; Johnson, 1999; Kaufman, 1994; Khantzian, 1985; Rockland, 1989; Smith, Glass, and Miller, 1980;