After a brief description of the characteristics of custodialism, a historical review is given of sociotherapy. The so-called moral treatment, the total push movement, and the school that centers around the idea of the therapeutical community are dealt with shortly. In the authors' view, the social milieu should be made a therapeutical vehicle through an activation-oriented therapeutical program, with social learning as the ultimate objective. Sociotherapeutical programs are then discussed, which should aim at as the patient's reactivation through an enriched stimulus situation, and as the patient's remotivation by influencing ego-weakness, awareness of reality, and social withdrawal. The authors have put such program into practice in chronic psychotics and compared these patients to a similar group living in a custodial hospital setting. They found that after a six months' participation in a reactivation program, patients were better adapted to their physical and social environment. Using various drugs (penfluridol, haloperidol, and pimozide), the authors found that, depending on the neuroleptic used, patients react differently under a sociotherapeutic program; in a custodial hospital setting, the action of these drugs remained the same.