[Halfway house facilities as a means of therapy]

On the basis of three halfway houses which have been studied using ethnographic methods, this study seeks to describe both general and specific structures existing in these halfway houses. The proposed typology situates the halfway houses in a spectrum between "therapy" and "daily life" and interprets their therapeutic effect as resulting from the successful use of therapy and effective patterns of living within their confines. A central role is allotted to "daily life" as the environment in which the incorporation of therapeutic measures into patterns of living, which have been routinised and anchored into a certain milieu, takes place. The chances and risks in the therapeutic process which are characteristic for the different types of halfway house are clearly demonstrated. The observation of therapeutic procedures in the halfway houses in relation to the biography and family background of the patients results in a critical analysis of the basic tenets of the so-called milieu therapy with the consequence that the question which halfway house for which patient must be reformulated on a wider basis than has been the case up to the present.