Therapeutic community can play an important role in the development of the organisation of community mental health in future. The therapeutic community is mostly described in terms stemming from very different frames of reference: social, therapeutic or simply descriptive. It can be seen as a social structure to be used for different purposes giving it its ultimate shape. Democratisation, social confrontation with reality here-and-now, group- and teamwork are important characteristics. The relation with Society in general is ambiguous: it is both a culture in itself, an island in Society, and at the same time a subculture of it. Care for community mental health in our modern technological welfare State with its dangers of overcrowding etc. becomes a necessity more and more. People no longer take the authorities-of-old on their words, they want to think for themselves. Democratisation, teamwork, work with non-professionals, a better organisation, research for new psychotherapeutic procedures, become evident. Therapeutic community cannot be missed in the future as an institute to help those needing a 'bridge' from their troubled homes towards society. It can also help to solve problems of professional cooperation, cooperation with the patients-in-need themselves, it may also serve as a model on a low-scale basis to develop new techniques, provided it does not isolate itself and understands its laboratory function.