Surviving Mars
80 Achievements
1,750
0-2h
Assisted Self-Improvement
Treated 50 Colonists in a Sanatorium
20
20.61%
How to unlock the Assisted Self-Improvement achievement in Surviving Mars - Definitive Guide
Once you've researched the technology, build a dome and place the Sanatorium in the middle. To make things go faster, build an oval dome and put the Sanatorium in with the Arcology in order to maximize the population you can treat. Otherwise, build a few apartment buildings such that the total capacity of the dome is greater than 50 (not required, but helps to speed things up if colonists don't have to constantly move between domes).
For the Sanatorium itself, activate all work shifts and then select the Flaws you wish to correct. I selected Lazy, Alcoholic, and Gambler, since I saw those having the largest impact on my work force. Once you've done this, for the dome that has the Sanatorium, select the Dome, hit to select the infopane, hit to select "Filter by Trait," and open that menu. Go down to the Flaws sub-menu and approve (thumbs up) the three flaws you specified in the Sanatorium menu. Hit to go back to the main filter menu, then hit to apply.
Now, go to each other dome you have (if applicable) and do the opposite - disprove (thumbs down) those traits and apply. That will encourage colonists with those traits to relocate to the dome with the Sanatorium.
After that, it's simply a waiting game. It took about 10-15 Sols for my achievement to pop. You can monitor the number of colonists who have been "cured" of negative traits by select the Sanatorium ("Lifetime cured").
Edit (5 Apr 2018) - An upcoming patch will allow colonists to be directly assigned to the Sanatorium for treatment. This should help speed up progress toward the achievement. In my opinion, though, with so many other things to do, passively treating colonists will be the simplest way of getting this achievement.
Edit 2 (8 May 2018) - With the introduction of Passages, this achievement should be even easier to get, as you can link together domes now and they'll share populations and services.
The Sanatorium is a spire building that unlocks after researching the “Behavioral Shaping” technology in the Social tech-tree, usually unlocked towards mid-game phase of a playthrough. At any time, the Sanatorium can be instructed to treat 3 out of 7 types of flaws from Colonists - Alcoholic, Gambler, Glutton, Lazy, Chronic Condition, Melancholic and Coward. There’s a total of 12 types of flaws, but the rest cannot be treated.
For maximum effectiveness, ideally a Sanatorium should be built in a high population dome that can support a spire. Inspect the Sanatorium periodically to see if there are people staffed in the dome, meaning they are getting treated for the flaws that you have selected. If there aren’t any, choose other flaws and you’ll see other colonists with the respective flaws start to staff the building.
All 50 Colonists must be treated in a single playthrough, and you'll get this automatically if you're going for the S.P.E.C.I.A.L trophy using the methods described in that trophy.