The Philadelphia Association [UK]
The Philadelphia Association was founded as a Charity in 1965 by R D Laing, "Aaron Esterson, David Cooper, John Heaton, Clancy Sigal, Sidney Briskin, and Joan Cunnold, who had been a chief ward nurse in William Sargant’s unit at St.Thomas’s."^[*^] It stated as its central objective - in terms appropriate to the Association's formal existence as a Charity - "the relief of mental illness of all descriptions, in particular schizophrenia". From the beginning, however, its more radical intention was to question the way in which the "facts" of "mental health" and "mental illness" are seen.

The first of a number of therapeutic community households to be founded by the Philadelphia Association, Kingsley Hall, was opened in 1964. A series of lectures and seminars, which eventually was to become the Introductory Course, began at the same time. Over the next decade a psychotherapy training, involving personal analysis, supervision of training cases, and study of the classic texts, gradually evolved.

Today, the Association runs a small number of community households, a psychotherapy training course, seminars and public lectures. An Introductory course is open to those interested in the broad field of psychotherapy, particularly from the standpoint of a philosophical and cultural critique of much that is elsewhere taken for granted.

Full Spectrum Progressive Mental Health [USA]
Full Spectrum is an innovative, not-for-profit mental health center in San Francisco. The Center offers both the full range of standard psychotherapy services and day programs for adults and adolescents. The day programs integrate psychology, body-oriented therapy, art and play therapy into an effective, interdisciplinary support system. Full Spectrum helps people in crisis avoid hospitalization. They believe in addressing the whole person, mind and body; in helping people heal, not just cope; in identifying causes and solutions rather than simply managing "symptoms." The Center also seeks alternatives to medications and offers medication reduction services.

The Association of Therapeutic Communities
The Association of Therapeutic Communities grew up in the 1960s and 1970s as a supportive organisation for professionals who worked in therapeutic communities, who visited each others' units and shared ideas. It acts as a focus for information, debate, training and support - for anybody who wants their milieu to have a therapeutic effect on the residents, patients or clients; or for anyone who works in a therapeutic community. The ATC also responds and makes representation to appropriate bodies on political and training issues, and liaises with organisations whose interests overlap with theirs. The ATC also publishes a joint newsletter, with previous issues available to be read online.
Subscribing to the ATC email discussion list is highly recommended. For more info: http://www.tc-of.net/

ISPS
The ISPS draws together individuals who are interested in psychological therapies for psychosis, a much neglected area. ISPS wants to promote better knowledge of the psychological approaches and better integration with pharmaceutical and other approaches. ISPS organises conferences and publish books on psychological approaches to psychosis.

The Freedom Center [USA]
Freedom Center in Northampton, Massachusetts is a support, advocacy, and activism group organizing for human rights and holistic alternatives. Freedom Center is run solely by people labeled with severe 'mental illness,' and a leading member lived and worked with Laing in the 1970s.

The Charterhouse Group [UK]
The Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities is a charitable organisation speaking and working on behalf of its members who provide specialist treatment, through therapeutic care and education, to severely emotionally deprived and damaged children, young people and their carers.

Arbours Association [UK]
The first Arbours community opened in 1970, to provide personal, psychotherapeutic support and places to live outside mental hospitals for people in emotional distress. The organisation has gradually expanded to provide three Therapeutic Communities, a Crisis Centre, A Psychotherapy Service and A Training Programme in psychotherapy.

The Planned Environment Therapy Trust [UK]
The PETT is a relatively small charitable trust founded in 1966 by Marjorie Franklin to promote research and discussion furthering the support and use of approaches to living and working with unhappy, disturbed, delinquent or disturbing individuals, in which all the resources of a thoughtfully created environment, the shared living experience, and above all the enormous healing potential of relationships, are brought together for therapeutic ends.