I've been in a couple of therapeutic communities too (one residential and one day-patient). Overall they were both very helpful places, though I found I was able to get a bit more out of the day-patient one, perhaps because I was older and understood more about it all.
Generally, the idea (in the TCs I've been in) is that you learn about yourself through therapy with your peers. Whilst there are trained therapists around to facilitate and keep things contained, the bulk of your development comes through understanding your relationships with others in the group (which give you clues as to past relationships) and learning about how your actions affect others and how others affect you. TCs often have a combination of business meetings which involve the whole community, formal therapy groups (might be small groups, large groups, art therapy and drama therapy, to name a few, and some TCs do individual therapy), and social/activity groups like gardening, cooking etc. Usually community members will be expected to take on jobs in the community, which fosters an atmosphere of competence. These may be small jobs like watering the plants or 'bigger' ones like chairing community meetings.
It doesn't work for everyone, but I've seen people completely turn around their lives in TCs... I feel somewhere in the middle.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Really hope you're doing a bit better following being so poorly - that sounds very scary.
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