Keele Research Repository

The dissertation attempts to use the theory and practice of social phenomenology to reconstruct the lived experience of a seven month stay in an ’anti-psychiatric’ therapeutic community. First, the historical background of the therapeutic community movement is explored; then the community I stayed in is described, under a variety of headings. Three ’case studies’ of residents are presented.
A theoretical section then follows, which examines the preconditions for a valid social phenomenology. The work of Husserl and Sartre is considered, focusing on their later works in both cases. Whilst neither approach (Husserl’s or Sartre’s) is considered self-sufficient, it is argued that, via a cross-fertilisation of ideas, an adequate transcending synthesis is possible, indeed necessary.
The dissertation then returns to the empirical material and focuses on ritual as a mode of social togetherness. Ideas from Anthropology - particularly those of Victor Turner - are invoked this point; as also is an idea of R.D. Laing's, concerning ritualisation and so-called ’psychotic behaviour’.
The dissertation ends with an attempt to construct a ’morphological continuum', and with concluding summaries of the theoretical and empirical findings.