Improving the Quality of Life During Recovery-Oriented Treatment in Therapeutic Communities for Addiction in Brazil

During the second half of the last century, a worldwide movement spread on the mental health scene: the Psychiatric Reform. At the same time, the proposal of Therapeutic Communities (TCs) was born, which would later become a model of care for people with substance use disorders (SUD), mostly focusing to improve the quality of life (QoL) of their participants. In Brazil, due to the problem with crack/cocaine abuse and the lack of welfare policies, there was an indiscriminate proliferation of TCs to face these problems. Most of these facilities still neglect the basic regulations and guidelines, and in no way, do they resemble the original TC model, which is definitely alarmingly. Many of these places still have inhuman and iatrogenic practices, very similar to those criticized by the Psychiatric Reform movement, which has caused the discredit of the TC model as a whole. Considering this scenario, the present article aims to demonstrate that the real TCs present good results and could strongly improve the QoL of their participants. The outcomes of an experience with the implementation of a monitoring system in Therapeutic Communities in Brazil (State of São Paulo) showed that when the Therapeutic Communities are organized with defined guidelines, with the presence of a technical staff for the elaboration and development of the activities, with a diversity of proposed activities, as well as effective and continuous monitoring, they present important results for the improvement of the QoL of individuals who suffer from substance use disorder and social vulnerability.