This article has for its object: a description of the results of residential psychotherapy, measured by the change in coping. The data come from a large scale follow-up project ; the instrument used in this project is a questionnaire, which, among other things, makes inquiries about coping. Data of patients of Psychotherapeutic Communities, gathered at the time of admission, at discharge and one year after discharge and data of a sample of the normal population have been analysed. Data are considered as preferences for coping-strategies and they are analysed by way of the unfolding-model. In the overall structure two dimensions of coping appear: 'social-individual' and 'facing reality— symptom formation'. At the time of admission patients' coping is very different from the strategies, preferred by the normal population. After treatment patients cope more like the normal population, but they don't achieve its level of 'facing reality'. Compared to preferences at the time of admission, the configuration of patients' strategies after treatment has become more differentiated. The problem of the criterion in coping-research is discussed.