The Brazilian authors of this paper followed a routine of participant observation for 2 weeks at the KEY program and 1 week at the CREST program, both TCs for incarcerated offenders in Wilmington, Del. During this period, they observed and participated in all program activities. Notes were taken daily, and staff members and residents of each program were formally interviewed. The residents' impressions about their treatment program were of great importance to this evaluation. The impressions of the participant observers were then systematically discussed with the other two co-authors of this paper in a series of meetings and seminars between their respective research groups and teams. What the investigators observed at both TCs, using the analogy of a theater performance, was that the newcomer was invited not to sit in the "audience" and act as a mere observer, but to go on the "stage" and enact one of the "characters" of the "plot." KEY residents are invited to play a different "role" from the one they normally play in their lives, and the essence of their treatment is therein composed. At the TC, the resident gets involved in the safe atmosphere of treatment and transfers his psychic reality to the TC environment and to the other residents at the same time. Therefore, he is able to act concretely and know he is immersed in an environment that may be unreal (compared to the world outside the TC), but is useful for his recovery. 1 table and 19 references