Therapeutic communities (TC) for substance abuse appeared a decade later than did therapeutic communities in psychiatric hospitals pioneered by Maxwell Jones and others in the United Kingdom (Jones 1953). The term therapeutic community evolved in the psychiatric hospital setting, although the two models arose independently. The TC for substance abuse emerged in the 1960s as a self-help alternative to existing conventional treatments. Recovering alcoholic and drug-addicted individuals were its first participants/developers. Although its modern antecedents can be traced to Alcoholics Anonymous and Synanon, the TC prototype is ancient, existing in all forms of communal healing and support.