The Radical Therapist: The Radical Therapist Collective [1974 printing ed.] 345223837125

Table of contents :
Introduction
Manifesto

1. Toward a Theory of Radical Theory
Radical Psychiatry: Principles, by Claude Steiner
On Training Therapists, by Michael Glenn
Radical Psychiatry and Movement Groups, by Claude Steiner
How to be a Radical Therapist, by Rick Kunnes
Radical Therapy Needs Revolutionary Theory, by Terry Kupers

2. "Mental Illness"-Old and New
Letter, by C.B.
Flection/Reflection, by Mary Barnes
Madness and Morals, by Morton Schatzman
"Anti-Psychiatry," Interview with Joe Berke
Insane Liberation Front

3. Women and Men
Editorial, by Judith Brown
Brainwashing and Women, by a Redstockings Sister
The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, by Anne Koedt
Letter to Her Psychiatrist, by Nadine Miller
Oedipus and Male Supremacy, by Robert Seidenberg
The Personal is Political, by Carol Hanisch
Consciousness Raising and Intuition, by Kathie Sarachild
Is Women's Liberation a Therapy Group?, by Marilyn Zweig
Mothers of the Millennium, by Judith Brown
Lesbianism, by Martha Shelley
What You Can Do, by Redstockings (San Francisco)
Marriage and Psychotherapy, by Phyllis Chesler
Radical Psychiatry in Women's Groups, by Hogie Wyckoff
Aggression in Women, by Shirley Bernard
Offing Piggery in Women's Groups, by Dot Vance

4. Community and Society
Stealing Mental Health: Theory and Practice, by Rick Kunnes
Community Mental Health as a Pacification Program, by Jim Statman
Number Nine: Creating a Counter-Institution, by Dennis Jaffe
Dump Therapy, by Marilyn Becker
Spatial Relations in Community, by Dan Leibsohn

5. Further Concerns
Rights of Children
Psychiatric Draft Letters, by Peter Roemer
Gay Liberation Manifesto, by Carl Wittman
Notes on Fanon, by Phil Brown
Radical Psychiatry Manifesto, by Claude Steiner
Editorials from The Radical Therapist

Citation preview

Walden

Ballantine 22383 $1.25

Editions

XJC

R4DIGIL THERAPIST The Radical Therapist Collective Produced by Jerome Agel

therapy means

CHMNGE not adjustment

THE

RADICAL

THERAPIST The Radical Therapist Collective

Produced by Jerome Agel

BALLANTINE BOOKS

•

NEW YORK

Copyright

©

1971 by Jerome Agel.

All rights reserved.

SBN

345-22383-7-125

How To Be M.D.

a Radical Therapist by Richard Kunnes,

© Richard Kunnes, M.D. All rights reserved.

Mental Health: Theory and Practice by Richard Kunnes, M.D. Richard Kunnes,

Stealing

©

M.D. All

rights reserved.

First Printing: September, 1971 Second Printing: February, 1973

Third Printing: January, 1974 Printed in the United States of America

BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC. 201 East 50th Street, New York,

N.Y. 10022

Contents Introduction

Manifesto I.

Toward a Theory

of Radical Therapy

Radical Psychiatry: Principles, by Claude Steiner On Training Therapists, by Michael Glenn

Radical Psychiatry and Movement Groups, by Claude Steiner How To Be a Radical Therapist, by Rick Kunnes Radical Therapy Needs Revolutionary Theory, by Terry Kupers

H. "Mental Illness"—Old and Letter,

New

by C.B.

Flection/Reflection, by

Mary Barnes

Madness and Morals, by Morton Schatzman "Anti-Psychiatry," Interview with Joe Berke

Insane Liberation Front DDE.

Women

and

Men

by Judith Brown Brainwashing and Women, by a Redstockings Sister The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, by Anne Koedt Letter to Her Psychiatrist, by Nadine Miller Oedipus and Male Supremacy, by Robert Seidenberg The Personal Is Political, by Carol Hanisch Consciousness Raising and Intuition, by Kathie Sarachild Is Women's Liberation a Therapy Group? by Marilyn Zweig Editorial,

113 121 127 139

144 152 158

160

Mothers of the Millennium, by Judith Brown Lesbianism, by Martha Shelley What You Can Do, by Redstockings (San Francisco)

Marriage and Psychotherapy, by Phyllis Chesler Radical Psychiatry in Women's Groups, by Hogie Wyckoff Aggression in Women, by Shirley Bernard Offing Piggery in Women's Groups, by Dot Vance

164 169 173 175 181 188

192

IV. Community and Society

Theory and Practice, by Rick Kunnes Community Mental Health as a Pacification Program, by Jim Statman Number Nine: Creating a Counter-Institution, by Dennis Jaffe Dump Therapy, by Marilyn Becker Spatial Relations in Community, by Dan Leibsohn Stealing Mental Health:

199

210 219 235 239

V. Further Concerns Rights of Children Psychiatric Draft Letters, by Peter

Roemer

Gay Liberation Manifesto, by Carl Wittman Notes on Fanon, by Phil Brown Radical Psychiatry Manifesto, by Claude Steiner Editorials from The Radical Therapist

253 257 262 21 280 283

therapy means political change not peanut butter

Introduction Radical therapy is just beginning. It's being developed all across the country. It can't be described in six easy rules or five techniques that's good, because RT is a way of living, not another "new kind" of therapy that can take its place in the psychotherapy spectrum. RT starts from the awareness that therapy is a social and political event,

and moves to the conviction that

— —must be

therapy systems stitutions

like

many

of this country's in-

changed. RT groups have begun in Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, New York, New Haven, and elsewhere. People have identified themselves as "radical

and are working for change where are working within the system in community mental health centers, neighborhood clinics, hospitals, and training programs; therapists"

they can.

Some

others are starting alternatives outside the sys-

tem

—

rap centers, therapy collectives, comradical psychiatry groups. Many colleges now give at least one course in radical psychology.

munes

in

and

People are determined to stop therapy's perpetuating and legitimizing oppression. We're developing a therapy that serves the people, ix

RADICAL THERAPIST

Wherever you look, therapy has failed. The only persons consistently helped are the therapists, whose lives are comfortable. State hospitals are collecting bins and processing plants; psychoanalysis serves a fancy elite group, and it's debatable if it helps even them. Other forms of therapy are hit-and-miss the field is swollen with people selling their wares, but the wares are often shoddy and the marketplace is corrupt. Most therapists are men; most patients, women. Therapy, thus, reinforces and exemplifies the sexist practices of this society, making it hard for a woman to get real help. Most therapists are white and middle-class, thus making it hard for lowerclass, black, brown, and red people to get counseling in a nonoppressive way. Family or group therapy may deal well with interpersonal dynamics, but it grapples less fully with the real social conditions under which peope live. New touchyfeely encounter therapy helps people become freer in themselves, but ignores social or political third of all therapy is commissioned change. by someone else government, military, business,

—

A

—

main allegiance is to their (Thomas Szasz has written eloquently

school; the therapists' bosses.

about

this for years.)

And

all this

in a society

R. D. Laing points out, systematically drives people dut of their minds from childhood on, a society that regards as "normal" a meshwork of dehumanized, mechanical, and rigid patterns of that,

as

destructive

while

Rome

behavior.

Nero

(therapist)

fiddles

(Amerika) burns.

The therapist touts himself as a magician. But he doesn't follow through. Instead of allying himself to

doctor,

—

the tradition of soul healing (witch, witch GP, priest), he allies himself to the status

quo and bolsters it. He sells his skill like a vendor of fried chicken. He uses his prestige to

INTRODUCTION discredit

and

XI

slur social protest, youth,

liberation, homosexuality,

and any other

women's different

kind of behavior. Therapists' rewards come from helping the system creak on. Claiming to be "detached and clinical," therapists never are. They can't be. Their words and acts demonstrate their bias. Current therapy's emphasis on the individual cools people out and/ or puts them down. It cools them out by turning their focus from society that fucks them over to their own "hang-ups." It puts them down by making them "sick" people who need "treatment" rather than oppressed people who must be liberated.

change, not adjustment. This means and political. When people are fucked over, people should help them fight it, and then deal with their feelings. "struggle for mental health" is bullshit unless it involves changing this society which turns us into machines, alienates us from one another and our work, and binds us into racist, sexist, and im-

Therapy

—

change

is

social, personal,

A

To do good work, radical have to take risks to organize therapists, clients, and hospital workers, and to attack precious, oppressive institutions: the nuclear family, the forty-hour work week, fee-forservice care, mental hospitals as they now are, perialist

practices.

—

therapists will

treatment of children as parents' property, professionalism,

and so on. This

Some people

will

be done.

say radicals are against culture.

That's nonsense. Yes,

we want

to root out the

But we want to preserve the rest art, science, history and make it freely available to everyone. Therapy, aspects of this culture that oppress us.

—

—

today,

is treated like a dark secret patients are kept mystified, they're not told what the therapist

knows.

We

want

to stop the mystification that

-

XU

RADICAL THERAPIST

—

sets therapists up as gods words that confuse, medications that aren't discussed, theories that are bullshit, silences when people are asking questions. If there are ways of helping people with problems, let's say what they are and teach them to people. There's a difference between skill and role. Therapy skills that have been developed are useful; so is the understanding of human behavior we've built up. These can be made available to everyone. On the other hand, therapist roles, which have made therapists privileged and unaccountable, can be abandoned. Roles oppress us; skills serve us. Abolishing mystification and professionalism is part of our task.

Not all therapists are pigs. Many are wellintentioned people who have been trapped, like the rest of us, in a lousy system, though in a less deadly way since they benefit materially from their "oppression."

Those who

still

want

to

do

valuable work can join us in the struggle for change. The others will fight us tooth and nail, calling us names, reading us out of their "professional" organizations, and so on. That kind of politics is nothing new. Therapy today is a power relationship between people one up, one down; helper and helped.

—

In a society built on individualism and competition,

it

embodies the problem,

and thus can

scarcely be seen as a solution for people

who

are

fucked up. Current therapy offers "solutions" only to people who buy the system and want to maintain their place in it. Which is another way of saying current therapy serves the system.

why we need to develop alternatives. many alternatives. Therapists and and people, joining together in a common

That's

Two, clients

three,

effort.

This anthology

is

a beginning.

It offers articles

INTRODUCTION

Xlll

from The Radical Therapist, and, hopefully, provides people with a place to take off from.

A

word about The Radical Therapist

The Radical Therapist began as an idea in a cold North Dakota winter. Therapy, like other had spawned several

professional fields,

radical

groups and caucuses in recent years, but no journal had emerged as a rallying ground for all the people involved. That's why we began The Radical Therapist. If we hadn't started it, others would have. It was in the

The response feeling that

air.

first issue confirmed our people were ready to help de-

to our

many

velop radical therapy. Every day now, more people realize they're part of the network, too. The Radical Therapist speaks to many people not just to "professionals," but also to clients, patients, students, workers, young people, women, and others concerned with changing therapy as part of changing society. Our first year was chaotic. Some of us were in the Air Force (against our will), and were being watched closely. The women were involved in organizing women's liberation groups in this area, which was difficult and exciting. We helped start a rap center in town, and went through a classic witch-hunting scenario, and we were charged as dangerously subversive. Things managed to work out.

—

Many people have helped us subscribing, finding us bookstores, sending in articles, writing us letters, sharing ideas. Their help has made The Radical Therapist possible, and we appreciate it very much. (Subscriptions are only $6.00 per year; we start you with the latest issue that's still available.)

RADICAL THERAPIST

Xiv

A

word about

this

book

This anthology raises the question of co-optaReaching more people than The Radical Therapist, it still plays the publishing game, and tion.

generates money for booksellers, publishers, etc. Our choice was simple: 1) we could claim ideological purity and not publish, thus failing to reach the general public, or 2) we could publish

book and reach more people, accepting the economics of book publishing. We couldn't publish this anthology ourselves at this time. We felt it was more important to give people across the country a chance to read these articles. We chose to publish. Well share our royalties with the authors whose articles are here. Their articles with their split infinitives and sometimes peculiar punctuation appear here exactly as they were submitted to, and were published in, The Radical this

—

Therapist. tent style.

No effort was made to edit Each voice remains original.

for consis-

—

We're thinking about next year now pursuing ways of getting our ideas to people who don't read books, finding out what others think and feel about therapy. This means work with new formats and new media. It means speaking and listening to people. It means trying more things out.

We'd be interested in hearing your comments and suggestions. In the struggle,

Michael Glenn for The Radical Therapist R.D.

#

1

Hillsdale,

N. Y. 12529

July 1, 1971

David Bryan, Linda Bryan, The RT Michael Galan, Michael Glenn, Sara Glenn. Collective:

Manifesto Why

have we begun another journal? No other publicaneed we feel exists to unite all people con-

tion meets the

:

cerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other "professional" journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues. They support the antiyouth hysteria so prevalent today and stifle efforts for change. We need a new forum for our views. In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as "disturbed" those who press toward it. Concerned with maintaining and justifying current practices, therapy avoids moving toward making life more meaningful for all people. All this is no secret. Many people in and out of therapy fields agree the situation is intolerable. Why then does it persist? Therapists by training, what we have been taught is increasingly irrelevant, and even destructive. Our notions of therapy are obsolete: elitist, male-centered, and obsessional.

Our modes

ploitive. Clinging to

of practice are often racist

and ex-

concepts often outmoded and rarely

questioned, we insulate ourselves from the society around us and support the status quo. And we can do this very

xv

RADICAL THERAPIST

XVI

The

successfully.

therapist in this society is safe:

he

lives

near the top of the heap, pursuing moneyed comforts, influence, and prestige, while the rest of society is racked by violence and war. He buys land and boats while others die in the streets. Often he even seems unaware of the bias he perpetuates or of the oppression he enacts in the name of "liberation." Expert as he may be at analyzing intrapersonal forces, he is often ignorant about forces controlling the larger society in which he lives. This must be

exposed and clarified. Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people's distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change. But to be true instruments of change, therapy and therapists must be liberated from their own forms of oppression. The Radical Therapist will be a rallying ground for all people concerned with this task. Therapy to us broadly

encompasses

all

factors affecting the psychic well-being of

We

open our pages and social groups. to all people with pertinent ideas about therapy today: to clients of therapy systems, therapists, and people in related

individuals, families,

fields.

We shall pursue the following points: Providing a needed forum

Therapy

in latter 20th-century

America must be

re-

defined and altered. Many people across the country are willing to help in such a task. All that is currently lacking forum. is a forum. The Radical Therapist will be that Therapy has political as well as professional aspects. Radical insights within the therapy fields can alter the way we define and carry out our work. Radical insights into the that larger social order can show therapy's place within force order, and suggest how it can be a more effective

At the outset, we acknowledge the uneasy our tension between the words "radical" and "therapist" in

for change.

— MANIFESTO Yet many of us live daily with this know only too well that it must be clarified.

title.

XVU tension and

Just as all people are potentially patients, so all are potentially therapists. All can attack the roots of emotional

We invite support from all concerned people, not from a professional elite. We repudiate divisions among ourselves on the basis of sex, class, training, and

distress.

just

we are more alike than different. Our common task transforming therapy into a more effective popular system which can free those in distress instead of oppressing them. status: is

Liberating therapy, therapists, and others

Therapy

dominated by gradualist models which Even well-meaning people today find themselves trapped in a frustrating, dehumanizing system, from which they see no way out. The revolutionary spirit of the founders of therapy Pinel, Freud, Reich has been weeded out. Intending to liberate people from their neuroses, therapists today further "adjustment," social control, and the commercialized society. In spite of evidence from therapists themselves, the system remains unresponsive, bulky, privileged, and stiff. Therapy notions are a tangle of midwife myths, fantasy, and outright bias. Therapy practices serve the free enterprise system. But contemporary therapy demands contemporary ideas. Sensitive to notions of "countertransference," therapists can be amazingly blind to their own class, race, and sex bias; and to the historical moment in which they live. Therapy's goals need clarification. Many today are in emotional distress and seek help. What kind of "help" will they get? From whom? Toward what end? At what fee? Under what system? With what orientation? And who will guarantee the competent concern of their "therapists"? Therapy today is a class phenomenon: a luxury for the is

bolster the status quo.

—

Most people receive no such help, or are consigned to hurried, inexperienced therapists who rely mainly on drugs. At home with the affluent, therapy extends itself

well-to-do.

RADICAL THERAPIST

XVU1

with suspicion to other social groups, and often tries only to regulate or determine their development. Therapists universally retreat behind the safety of a one-up "impartial" stance.

The

situation

unsatisfactory.

is

Therapy's insights must be reevaluated and altered, and then made available to people in ways which serve their goals. As a commodity on an open marketplace, though, therapy is ultimately degrading. Nor is it enough to pursue a medical model and try to develop popular programs to "treat the masses." Therapists must understand their place in the changing social and political reality: thus therapy must become more politically aware. No therapist, no person, can claim detachment from his social context. Each human act is a social and moral statement: a political fact. It then becomes important which values we hold and which of them comes first. This awareness must structure all radical therapy today; for liberation from within has to be ac-

companied by

liberation

from without.

Developing new training programs Therapists are groomed for elitist, frequently escapist careers. Professional associations and journals legitimize such training, and the mass media tout its necessity. Yet current training perpetuates outmoded systems. In an age when everything is under question, therapy

and exploitive

down

training bears

all

the harder on those it teaches, as if systems obviate change;

this will abolish doubt. Hierarchical

and training programs,

wound many

people.

like practice,

The system

is

tend to stultify and slow to respond to

popular needs. created everywhere: between therapists from various between senior and junior disciplines, between "professionals" and laymen. Institutional rigidity represses the need for alteration, and men of good will are lost year afer year within their labyrinthine Artificial

barriers

are

staff,

tangles.

Training programs keep therapists apart and encourage

MANIFESTO

XIX

Course work in other relevant fields lacking in every discipline. Psychiatrists lack training in psychology; social workers lack training in simple drug use; psychologists lack training in sociology. All therapists lack false professionalism.

is

training in politics, art, history,

and economics, which

they vitally need today. Therapy is not a medical specialty, nor is it a branch of the social sciences. It is a field all its own, dealing with relationships between people; and as

such it demands its own orientation and its own training programs which draw on the experience of all pertinent disciplines.

We need new training programs, not amended or expanded versions of what we already have. We need ten times as many therapy workers. We need to make better use of community resources and extend to more people the insights

now

available to the few.

of the same, but a wholly

We

need, not

new approach.

more

Finally,

we

need to examine the free system which allows some therawealth at people's expense. Training must be demystified and made more open, more responsive, and more creative. New experiments are already beginning to challenge and redefine our notion of therapy. We encourage them and look forward to their pists to obtain excessive

results.

Elaborating a new psychology of men and women, and new concepts of family and community life

The ways we

with one another are poorly understood. We must look into ways in which unquestioned male-dominate ideas have influenced therapy, especially therapy of changing. Yet

live intimately

much

of this

is

women. Men and women must both be

liberated

from

rigid

sex stereotypes in order to develop their own potential Deviance as a social diagnosis must not be confused with neurotic behavior. need to know much more about all this, for our old ideas are no longer appropriate. The nuclear family, so long revered and unchallenged, now appears as simply the

We

XX

RADICAL THERAPIST

most common alternative for achieving needs for intimacy and raising children. We need to evaluate the other alternatives. Similarly, we need to investigate the changing notions of men and women, as well as alternate modes of living. But unless we ourselves are freed from dogma and

we will never understand others who experiment with new ways. Instead, we will see dangerous "sickness" bias,

everywhere.

Encouraging the development of more responsive therapy programs under client control all the talk about "community mental health," have done little toward considering the real health needs of communities. The community mental health movement is a fraud. It has never been in popular hands.

Despite

therapists

Affording a crucible of power to ambitious professionals, it often offers but another form of oppression to the people. Professionals' needs for wealth, prestige, and influence are satisfied, while distress in the community goes on as

Yet the therapist's money comes from the community. Bringing a skill in understanding human feelings before.

to the community, he

must learn to

offer

it

as his clients

not as he would give it. More sensible forms of therapy, controlled by and responsive to community needs, must be devised and offered. The community is its people: not the therapists, or the university, or the research teams, or big business, or the government. Therapists who enter the community may consider themselves part of it: but they cannot claim to know what is best for it. They cannot shape its needs. As radical therapists, our task is exposing the nature of current practices and pursuing new innovations in therapy serdecentralized, democratic, noninstitutional, and vices: popular. We can identify and channel grievances, and help stimulate action. This way we join the search for new ways of serving the community's needs. More than communities are being violated. Therapists define what is appropriate and what is not, even while

need

it,

MANIFESTO

XXI

claiming to be "disinterested." They operate as forces for weeding out deviance with the label of "mentally ill." Wherever it functions as an agent of the system, encouraging conformity, helping people "adjust" to the realities of exploitation, antiquated roles, and a casual dehumanizing ethic, therapy is an instrument of opsocial control,

pression.

those

Such "therapy"

whom

society

institutionalizes

will

not

tolerate,

and stigmatizes

numbs minds,

and antidepresses, electroshocks, disenfranchises, diagnoses, ostracizes, psychologizes, and treats people as commodities and things. We oppose this from the core of our being. We denounce all "therapy" which dehumanizes and violates our brothers and sisters. tranquilizes

Encouraging new techniques

We encourage

the search for self-realization, singly and growth within com-

in groups, with the eventual goal of

Growth can be individual as well as collective. support new techniques and innovations in therapy, but we decry their use as middle-class escapist outlets or as vehicles for profiteering by some in our field. Effective techniques should be popularly available. New forms of therapy are important in our move toward liberation. They deserve sympathetic and critical munities.

We

from insistance that whatever exists now So long as innovations are honest and open and are not used to exploit people, we are interested in them. Moves toward group and communal experience, as well as individual growth, can help free us from inner as well as evaluation, freed

is best.

outer forms of repression. At the same time, we are alarmed by the use of insights from therapy fields to extend institutional and govern-

mental control, through required psychological tests for employee applicants, inappropriate in-depth interviews, and the use of therapists as consultant engineers for third parties such as corporations, the military, and universities. Psychological innuendo in advertising is also questionable on moral grounds, and must be reexamined. Therapy can-

RADICAL THERAPIST

Xxii

of every not escape responsibility for the oversexualization undersexualization the for commodity on the market; and of sex

itself.

Confronting the

way our

society functions

which we all are concerned with the social milieu in Thus well-being. psychological on effect live, and with its of our natural reviolation against crusade the join we

We

our minds by sources, whether through encroachment on and education, stereotyped advertising, the mass media, destruction blatant the through or myths; cultural

outdated air and our environment's wholesomeness through industrial and chemical water pollution, overpopulation, might create waste, and unlivable cities. Our technology want, clean and and scarcity from free environment an pleasing. Instead, it destroys whatever it of

aesthetically

touches.

and lakes are destroyed by an arrogant, so our sense of humanness is bartechnology, unfeeling and the conraged daily by the mass media. Advertising measure of The thing. a person sumer economy make every notoriand wealth, objects, accumulated success becomes self, community, and family one's of well-being the ety not people called and world. We must realize that many by our sotraumatized socially "mentally ill" have been Just as the rivers

emotional suffering. ciety which creates and exacerbates suffering is soWhile we do not pretend that all mental political roots and social cially caused, we are alert to the be negligence would this pursue to of it. Failing of

much

and complicity.

Beyond the environmental ruin and the consumer Breaking out economy lies the constant presence of war. always the are results war's once, at fronts now on many maiming, disrupsame- destruction of people, killing and

tion

of family

and community

senseless suffering.

The

internal

life, ills

violence,

our society

brutality,

now

ex-

war home." What we periences have already "brought the nationally and suffer internationally, we now practice

MANIFESTO locally.

We

are

all affected

by such

XX111

brutality,

and by the

ultimate madness of our nuclear weapons. Unless

we

as

and people can look beyond "professional" issues and approach the social and political roots of suffering, we act as unknowing agents for the established order.

therapists

In the midst of social upheaval The Radical Therapist with those working for needed change. Essentially, The Radical Therapist seeks to bring together all people concerned with looking at therapy in today's society. While drawing on therapeutic tradition, we should deprofessionalize and demystify therapy work. Our view of existing institutions is radically critical: but then it is no secret how bad things have become. We will make people aware of the situation, and pursue programs for change. In this exciting venture, we invite support and participation from all who help us redefine therapy and make it a more responsive, meaningful human pursuit. allies itself

THE RADICAL THERAPIST

I.

Toward

a Theory of

Radical Therapy

Radical Psychiatry: Principles Claude Steiner Claude Steiner is at the Radical Psychiatry Center in Berkeley.

Psychiatry

the art

is

practices the art

;

;

|

of soul healing.

Anyone who

a psychiatrist. The practice of psychiatry, usurped by the medical profession, is in a sad state of disarray. Medicine has done nothing to improve it; as practiced today, medical psychiatry is a step sideways, into pseudoscientism, from the state of the art in the middle ages when it was the province of elders and priests is

as well as physicians.

Psychiatry as

to

it is predominantly practiced today needs be changed radically, that is "at the root" Psychiatry is a political activity. Persons who avail

themselves of psychiatric aid are invariably in the midst of power-structured relationships with one or more other

human

;

beings.

The

psychiatrist has

an influence in the

power arrangements of these relationships. Psychiatrists pride themselves on being "neutral" in their professional dealings. However, when one person dominates or oppresses another, a neutral participant, especially when he is seen as an authority, becomes an enforcer of the domination and his lack of activity becomes essentially political

and oppressive. 3

4

RADICAL THERAPIST

The classic and prime example of this fact is found in psychiatry's usual role jn relation to women where, at worst, psychiatrists promote oppressive sex roles and at best remain neutral, therefore supportive of them. The same is true of psychiatry's traditional role in relation to the young, black, and poor; in every case psychiatry's "neutrality" represents

support of the oppressive

tacit

status quo.

There are four types of psychiatrists. Alpha psychiatrists are conservative or liberal in their political consciousness

and in their practice and methods of psychiatry; the largest majority of medical psychiatrists fall into this category. Beta psychiatrists are conservative or liberal in their politics and radical in their methods. Examples of this type are men like Fritz Perls and Eric Berne and the human potentialities psychiatrists, usually not physicians, who expand the boundaries of psychiatric practice, but tend to be unaware of the manner in which oppression is a factor in psychic suffering and ignore the political nature of their work. Gamma psychiatrists are radical in their politics but conservative in their practice. Examples of this are Laing and others (as a special case, Szasz, whose awareness of the politics of psychiatry is quite heightened) who practice old, outmoded methods of therapy based on Freudian or neo-Freudian theory with emphasis on individual psychotherapy, "depth," and "insight." The fourth kind of psychiatrist is the radical psychiatrist, who is radical both politically

The

and

in his psychiatric methods.

principle of radical psychiatry is that in the absence of oppression, human beings will, due to their first

basic nature or soul, which

and

is

preservative of themselves

harmony with nature and each the coercion of human beings by force

their species, live in

other. Oppression

is

or threats of force, and

is

the source of

all

human

aliena-

tion.

The condition of the human soul which makes soul healing necessary is alienation. Alienation is a feeling within a person that he is not part of the human species, that she is dead or that everyone is dead that he does not deserve to

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

5

or that someone wishes her to die. It may be helpful, connection, to remember that psychiatrists were originally known as alienists, a fact that seems to validate the notion that our forefathers knew more about psychiatry than we. Alienation is the essence of all psychiatric conditions. This is the second principle of radical psychiatry. Everything diagnosed psychiatrically, unless clearly organic in origin, is a form of alienation. The third principle of radical psychiatry is that all alienation is the result of oppression about which the oppressed has been mystified or deceived. By deception is meant the mystification of the oppressed into believing that she is not oppressed or that there are good reasons for her oppression. The result is that the person instead of sensing his oppression and being angered by it decides that his ill feelings are his own fault and his own responsibility. The result of the acceptance of deception is that the person will feel alienated. good example of this is the depressed youth who does not wish to participate in a war, but is forced to do so and told that he's doing it for the benefit of his country, the benefit of his brothers and sisters, or even for his own benefit. If he neglects to see that he is oppressed in this situation and comes to believe the mystifications about it, he will then turn from someone who is angry at his oppression to somelive,

in

this

A

one who is alienated and believes that he is a coward. Another example is the woman who, angered by her husband's domination, ceases to enjoy sex with him. Again, if she fails to recognize her oppression she will conclude that she is at fault; that she is "frigid," while if she becomes aware of the source of her anger she will recognize that her loving nature is intact. Thus, the difference between alienation and anger about one's oppression

is

unawareness of deception. Psychiatry

has a great deal to do with the deception of about their oppression.

=

Oppression -f- Deception Oppression Awareness

+

human

Alienation

=

Anger

beings

RADICAL THERAPIST

6

What, then, are the methods of radical psychiatry? The anyone who presents himself with a psychiatric problem as being alienated, that is being oppressed and deceived about his oppression, for otherwise he would not seek psychiatric succor. All other theoretical radical psychiatrist sees

considerations are secondary to this one.

The

basic formula of radical psychiatry

Liberation

The formula necessary.

=

Awareness

+

is:

Contact

two factors are one hand, awareness. That is, awareness

implies that for liberation

On the

and the sources of it. This type of awareness amply illustrated by the writings of Laing and the writings by radical feminists and blacks, and so on. However, of oppression

is

formula also implies that pure awareness of oppression does not lead to liberation. Awareness of oppression leads to anger and a wish to do something about one's oppression so that a person who becomes so aware changes from one who is alienated to one who is angry in the manner in which some black people and women have become angry. Anger, therefore, is a healthy first step in the process of liberation rather than an "irrational," "neurotic," or otherwise undesirable reaction. But liberation requires contact as well as awareness. That is to say, contact with other human beings who, united, will move against the oppression. This is why it is not possible to practice radical psychiatry in an individual psychotherapy context. An individual cannot move against his oppression as an individual; he can only do so with the support of a this

group of other human beings.

Thus it appears radical psychiatry is best practiced in groups because contact is necessary. Because people seeking psychiatric help are alienated and therefore in need of awareness a radical psychiatry group seems to require a leader or leaders who will undertake to guide the liberation process. To avoid the leader's oppression of group members each individual member should propose a contract with the group that indicates his wish to work on a specific problem. Liberation from the leader's guidance is the

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

7

by ultimate goal of radical psychiatry and is indicated person's exit from the group. Contact occurs between people in a number of different as deforms. Basically contact is human touch, or strokes, when people fined by Berne. But contact includes also aware of their oppression, permission, and protecthe

become

Permission is just what the word implies, a safeconduct for a person to move against his oppressor and to come to "take care of business." This permission needs stronger feel moment the at who persons from a person or than the one who is oppressed, usually the leader. Along the with the permission, the person who is to move against against protected be will he oppression needs to know that

tion.

the likely retaliation of the oppressor. radical This, then, is the vital combination of elements in contact and deception psychiatry: awareness to act against that to act against alienation. It should be reemphasized neither awareness by itself nor contact by itself will produce liberation. As an example, it is very clear that contact without awareness is the essence of the therapeutic en-

"human potentialities" movement. The human contact and its immediate production of

counters of the

potency of

found at Esalen and the present RAP eyed with suspicion by therapists in the Center, Movement because without awareness human contact has a capacity to pacify and reinforce the mystification of the oppressed. It is equally clear that pure awareness, whether the individual it be psychoanalytic or political, does not aid in overcoming oppression since the overcoming of oppression requires the banding together of the oppressed.

well-being, is

as

rightfully

On Training

Therapists Michael Glenn

Michael Glenn is on The Radical Therapist Minot staff. While much of what follows describes a psychiatrisfs experience, it is also true of other "professional" therapists' training. The suggestions at the end speak to all therapists.

The

psychiatrist in training

is

embedded

in a medically

oriented matrix with a closed-guild tradition, whose model is master and apprentice. He is assumed to be inexperienced and naive, a stumbling creature whose every step

must be watched 2nd checked. The model of supervision approximates that of therapist/patient, and the supervision constantly resorts to unbeatable ploys, like commenting on trainee's

psychological

businessmen,

artists s actors,

the

hang-ups.

Mathematicians,

teachers, historians:

all

are

acknowledged to have some sense of the world and of their place in it by the time they are thirty: yet the therapist in training is encouraged to see himself as grossly inadequate, ill informed, and bumbling.

The

professionalism of the medical model, with

its

aura

and mystique, permeates psychiatric training. One is constantly mystified and perplexed. The completion of train8

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

9

ing allows the now-professional psychiatrist to begin mystifying others, even though he usually has no idea how he does it. He seems to become mature, capable, and a member of the guild in good standing the moment the diploma enters his hand. Its model makes psychiatry invincible. Attempts to change are readily discredited as psychopathology, delayed adolescence, and acting out. The trainer rarely encounters

the trainee as another person, a brother or sister. Training marked by psychological put-down, intimidation, and guilt-invoking techniques. Its graduates then repeat their experience with their clients. Such a dehumanizing, de-

is

must be changed. and others have shown how psychotherapy dehumanizes both patient and therapist. Goflman has shown this in asylums. The same is true for therapist training, which effects the professional annihilation of trainees by incorporating them into a corrupting structure, which they must accept to succeed. They must play the game correctly. But learning to play the game correctly often ties them to its rules for life. It is a Medean shirt which cannot easily be removed once it is structive system

Szasz, Laing,

put on.

There are several features to Professional mystification

this:

and the

psychiatrist's role

have endured years of They have learned that, to be able to make an exorbitant income, they must assume a social mask of Responsibility and Omniscient Doctor. They are our society's shamans, though lacking in the latter's sense of true drama. Medical training has certain values: 1) It lets the young Psychiatrists, being physicians,

psychological brainwashing called education.

psychiatrist see the system as

it

really

is;

2)

learn to act decisively in emergencies; 3)

It

helps

It gives

him him

experience with ultimate, profound situations; 4) It prohim with a range of human experience albeit as

vides

—

RADICAL THERAPIST

10 observer gives

—

him

f

usually forbidden others not in the guild; 5) It status in the system.

In return, however, medical training tyrannizes the young psychiatrist in several ways: 1) It foists an image of the physician on him; 2) It keeps him an observer, not a participant; 3) It makes him seem/feel infallible; 4) It inculcates in him values of sacrifice and responsibility, while at the same time insisting he owes himself all the luxury he can later obtain, thus encouraging him to accept materialistic values as the true measure of his worth; 5) It estranges

him from

others.

Medical training supports the conventional values in society: the status quo, traditional sex roles, the search for profit. The physician becomes a petit entrepreneur. He has to behave the correct way. He becomes a defender of the church, the family, the community, the nation. His role today is a far cry from what it was in the 19th century, when physicians were often, as skeptics and scientists, in the vanguard of social change. Now, comfortable and fat, they challenge little and accept much.

this

They hang on to what

they've got. is mystifying. Doctors have kept

In addition, medicine

numbers down. They conceal facts from patients. They hide behind the garb of their professionalism, as if they possess arcane secrets. The public goes along with them and attributes all kinds of knowledge and power to them which they do not possess. Use of drugs, treatment

their

of illness, prognosis of common maladies: all these are kept as secrets for the medical profession only. Mystificathat only tion augments their status. But, based on a lie it makes the "prothey are capable of holding the secrets fession" ever paranoid, ever watchful, ever more secretive. Of course physicians resent pressure "from below" to

—

—

demystify. The doctor's morality is conventional: thus oppressive. Physicians act to heal and patch up: not to challenge the fabric of the system

which sustains them.

Psychiatrists, at

the top of the "mental health" heap, may indulge in liberal causes without fear, especially in a liberal university or

)

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

11

but they run into trouble if they become concerned beyond that. (I can cite five known instances of therapists being dismissed after becoming involved in community politics.

town

setting;

politically

The

psychiatrist in training learns to treasure his elite

rank on "ancillary" and "paraprofessionar personnel. His lengthy training lets him charge higher fees in private practice. He is a ubiquitous authority, assured identity, to pull

prestige

if

he only behaves

pecks on

right.

true of other therapist professionals. Each those beneath him; and all peck on the clients.

The same

is

Mystification of their skill maintains their invincibility.

Who

needs medical training?

—

or any therapists the rationale for psychiatrists training? medical is being physicians? How relevant Four years of medical school followed by an internship give the young psychiatrist the following: months of anatomy and biochemistry, histology, pathology, urology, sociology, psysurgery, cardiology. But he receives

What is

—

NO

chology, anthropology, politics, or notions of human interaction. To be a physician, he endures all kinds of special training, which he only forgets later. Indeed, he has to unlearn his taught bias later on. If the medical model is really important, all therapists could receive training in it. Certainly notions of public health, emergency care, and common maladies are useful to everyone who works with people. But the bulk of

medical school's professionalism, formality, and specialization is irrelevant to the therapist's work. The usual arguments for psychiatrists having to be physicians—thus

distinguishing

—

them from psychologists, are rationalizations for his-

nurses, social workers, torical accident and caste privilege. etc.

Emotional difficulty was defined by physicians as a medical illness: thus it had illness. to be treated by a physician specialist in emotional The medical model makes psychiatry oppressive: people are defined as "patients;" they are told they have "dis-

12

RADICAL THERAPIST

-

denigrated, eases;" they are locked up, shocked, socially and ostracized because they are "sick." The psychiatrist society's cop. people with problems in living really have an

becomes

Do

ill-

ness"? psychiatrists a healthy elite. It oppressed class. Other therapies too,

The medical model makes

patients an relainsofar as they participate in the one-up, one-down oppressive. as psychiatry join tionship, The issue of prescribing drugs is a red herring. Because treat only physicians can prescribe the drugs needed to

makes the

emotional "illness," they maintain a monopoly on their drug-company role. This issue is so contaminated with commercialism, "diagnostics," and mystifying guild elitism The simple that any sensible discussion of it is impossible. can learn people most important, is use drug fact is, if

about it in a rather brief time. Others argue that psychiatrists need medical training to which "catch" brain tumors and other "organic" diseases reactions, etc. conversion depression, as masquerade might The argument is weak. If such training is important for a therapists in a therapist to have, it can be taught most of medical years five take doesn't It brief time. rather

training to recognize organic disease.

about 80 percent a waste of time for the young psychiatrist. It should be scrapped.

Medical school

is

Repression of trainees

Inmost

psychiatric training centers, the residents,

young

not theirs to follow. "Others to them for up set is routine their make; and shall not wiser than they" determine what they shall adults, are powerless. Their curriculum

is

fronts. do. Resident advisory councils are false and afraid: intelligent is training in therapist The ideal made to feel inindecisive and obsessional, he can be and guilty with ease. Over and over again, in

adequate

my own push

training,

residents

administrators and supervisors would their grievances as adoles-

down, dismissing

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

13

cent psychopathology, criticizing their efforts at assuming own education. The amazing thing

responsibility for their is

how

selves.

readily the residents accepted this

They got themselves

into therapy.

image of them-

They forswore

uncover the "causes" of their rebelliousmore thorough job of mystificaness within themselves. tion and brainwashing was never achieved! Here, at random, are some incidents from my own social activism to

A

experience:

An

who

organized the community an imwas fired for "clinical incompetence." perialistic fraud The other residents refused to create a stir to defend him. 2) The director of the emergency room service decided that third-year residents would have to see every patient the first-year resident saw. This rule had not been observed for years. Rather than discuss the situation, the director 1)

activist resident

against the university's "mental health center"

—

—

would be followed. Residents' arguments could not move him. Yet the residents would not consider a strike or collective action to dramatize their opposition. Their attitude was: Why make waves; well soon be out. resident rotating through a state hospital criticized 3) its program to its director. The latter complained to a supervisor, and the resident was severely upbraided for "unprofessional behavior." paper written about the state hospital system was 4) bottled up by the administration and refused imprimatur. 5) An anonymous letter circulated among the supervisory staff which demanded higher salaries for residents and threatened to call the press unless its demand was met was angrily denounced by several of the staff at a residents' meeting. The unknown author it was unclear to the was residents if any of their number had ever written it called "seriously disturbed" and told to get himself into therapy. The issue of salaries was not discussed, except insisted his will

A

A

—

—

when the director advised any resident who wanted more money that he could go elsewhere. The anger and fear of the staff

6)

was

incredible.

The grapevine

in the

program proclaimed

that, so

-

RADICAL THERAPIST

14

the long as a resident didn't rock the boat, he could leave residents the of Most year. a $40,000 make and program swallowed the bait. What earthly incentive could they then

have for challenging the system! Our program emphasized one-to-one treatment, psygroup choanalytic insight, and hospital care. Family and work was almost nonexistent; and the "community program" existed in a vacuum, whose instructors never disoutside cussed what was going on in the actual community posts. but instead prepared the residents for administrative in value any saw It was frightening how few residents oppressing was agreed all they which opposing a system Their attitude was to wait until they were out and

them. on top themselves. Their salvation, in other words, lay in and alienate their future capacity to bilk, brainwash, co-opt as they long that, so illusion the preserved others. They outward disagreed inwardly, they could go along with the still preserve their integrity. Unless training programs are changed, therapists will continue to serve their own interests, not that of the peo-

demand and

ple.

They

be

will

men

of

good

will in

an oppressive struc-

ture.

Therapy and

politics

Therapists are politically naive. They come through a professional education which gives them little understanding of social and political issues. Psychiatrists probably

most through their long isolation in medical school, where they remove themselves from their society and give themselves the illusion they are gods. They are

suffer the

ignorant of their place in society; they are ignorant of what is going on in the real world; they are victims of a

narrow horizon. debt to complete training. MakStaying within the system important. ing they can rise out of debt and become affluent in a matter of years. It is no wonder they guard their possessions

Many therapists go into money

to

them

is

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY jealously

and are angry

at those

who

15

"impatiently" press

for change.

The life-style of the therapist—certainly the psychiatrist ^-proclaims his place in the status quo. He lives comfortably off in the suburbs, or in a town house. His children are in private school. He has a maid to free his wife. He owns color TV sets, cars, boats, land in the country, stereos, tailor-made clothes, season opera tickets, a fine portfolio of stocks; and takes vacations around the world.

HOW CAN HE EVER BE AN INSTRUMENT

OF CHANGE, THEN? He

owes allegiance to the system which he prospers. Thus it is that he becomes an oppressor, an enemy of the people. While he eats high off the hog, others starve. Even when he is "liberal" he rarely risks his security for his ideas. Within the present system, it seems, he has no choice. That is why the system must change. in

Therapy

is

not a branch of medicine, nor

is it

a social

science

Therapy

human

is

a discipline in

its

own

right, dealing

with

and human relationships in a human society. It was a historical accident that therapy became incorporated under its various disciplines. If we accept this, it then becomes clear how unfortunate and divisive are the distinctions between the various therapy fields. For some therapists to have medical training and others social work training and others experimental psychology training, etc., means that the field of therapy is being partitioned like Poland in the 18th century. Therapy demands its own institutions, its own training programs,

feelings

its

own practice. The

therapy

fields

belong together,

brothers and sisters under one roof.

Current training programs prepare young therapists for

which already exist in the system: institutional roles, private practice roles, research and teaching roles. But they don't prepare them for reexamining and challenging roles

the system

itself.

RADICAL THERAPIST

16

see this, but he isn't sure how has its advantages. Going clean to deal with it. Staying outside the system is a hardship. Only a few will take the risk, and they can be easily isolated. New training programs are needed if any change is to

The young

therapist

may

occur.

Alternative training programs Alternative institutions have risen dramatically in recent

on by Goodman and others, free universiand new life-styles have emerged. Roszak documents the movement's strength. Berke presents its rationale. Domhoff underscores its political importance. Rather than confront the present system head on and

years. Spurred ties,

free clinics,

be massacred by its flunkies, many today are working "to putting let grass push through cracks in the concrete": the letting and ways new and forms new energies into system collapse of its own dead weight. Some attempts have already been begun. Others will soon arise and will insolidify. The following is a sketch of what they volve:

such 1) Training will not divide people into categories the in people All worker." as "psychiatrist" and "social such. as trained be will They therapists. program will be Further skills can be obtained elsewhere. made a 2) Training will be open to all people, not miand communities poorer class privilege. Those from their training the to access ready have will nority groups

communities need. There will be an end to honky experts who come as colonialists to tell people how to live. communities. 3) Training will be funded by local deprofessionalized. 4) Training will be demystified and straight out. is necessary to know will be taught,

What What

unnecessary will be trashed. Therapists will be Their workers in their communities, like any other worker. But their skills skills are needed for the common good. is

not make them a "professional" elite. dealing 5) Training programs will be interdisciplinary,

will

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

17

with psychology and politics, sociology and art, the mass media, the analysis of power, theories of interaction, and

contemporary

history.

6) The model of training will change from hierarchical, obsessional, master/pupil interaction to a more open, popular, democratic form. All whose ideas and insights are valid will be heard. Age itself will carry no guarantee of

wisdom. 7) New techniques will be evaluated openly, without fear of change. Therapy training centers will be like free universities, not trade schools. Free inquiry and dissent will be encouraged, not put down as "pathology." Therapists

will

become

politically

involved in

the

overall

struggle against oppression.

8)

The number

of therapists trained will increase, thus by more available, more adequate,

benefiting the people more relevant care.

9) Incomes for practicing therapists will be appropriate No one will grow wealthy from the people's

to their work. suffering.

10) will

Modes

of collective practice and

communal

living

be

tried, in the belief that the therapist's life-style strongly affects his work. Therapists will not live aloof

from

their clients, distanced by class and interest, elite oppressors helping only from "above." They will be part

of their community.

11) Therapy will be available to all, not sold to those afford it like fried chicken or any other commodity. It will be geared to the needs of communities, not the needs of professionals. Let us push ahead, toward a radical therapy.

who can

Radical Psychiatry and

Movement Groups Claude Steiner

Radical psychiatry's main goal

is

to help

human

beings

Because alienation requires contact in groups it is important that beings with other human

overcome

alienation.

radical psychiatry provide guidelines for the healthy functioning and survival of groups. When people who are interested in radical changes organize groups they quite

naturally wish to organize them along lines which differ from the authoritarian and alienating basis on which oppressive, establishment groups are usually organized. As a consequence the structure of such groups is usually un-

and indeterminate, and the cohesiveness of such is weak. There are two types of attacks upon movement groups which have become classic examples: one of them is the leveling of hierarchies; the other is the game "Lefter Than Thou."

certain

groups against external attack

Lefter

Than Thou

It is a phenomenon completely familiar to everyone who has worked in a radical organization that in the course of events it happens that one or more people will attack

18

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

19

by professing

to be more revolutionary or radical than the leadership. Since it is always possible that this is the actual state of affairs, namely that the

the leadership

more

leadership of the group has become counterrevolutionary, organization has been totally torn apart by this kind of argument; in many cases organizations that were

many an

doing true and valuable revolutionary work. How is one to distinguish a situation in which a splinter group is for one reason or another simply attacking the leadership illegitimately, or whether such a group is in fact justified in its attacks?

I

would

like to cast the illegitimate attack of the leader-

by a splinter group in the mold of a Bernean game. The game is called "Lefter Than Thou." The thesis of the game is that a group of people doing revolutionary work which has a certain amount of momentum always includes a subgroup of people with revolutionary aspirations but who are incapable of mustering either the energy or the courage to actually engage in such activities. "Lefter Than Thou" players are persons who are dominated by an extremely intolerant and demanding conscience (or Parent) on the one hand and are not able to mobilize their scared Child to do any work on the other. Criticism of the activities of the group and the decisions of the leaders becomes a substitute for revolutionary work. This criticism occurs, usually, at meetings where work would ordinarily be discussed, and it always replaces ship of a group

effective action.

"Lefter

Than Thou"

players are either

dismembering the organization and wind up without a context in which to work, or they are expelled from the organization by the effective leadership of it and effective in

find themselves again in a situation in which no work can be done. In both cases they have a clear-cut justification for their lack of activity, and this is the payoff of the game. It is a hallmark of "Lefter Than Thou" players that they are angry, often "Angrier Than Thou"; it is quite possible, however, to distinguish the anger of a "Lefter Than

20

RADICAL THERAPIST

Thou"

player from the anger of a person reacting to his oppression. "Lefter

Than Thou"

of the middle class.

On

players are this basis

who

is

effectively

most always children

it is

easy to see

why

a

group of black militants can hardly be accused of playing "Lefter Than Thou" while a group of white college stu dents

who

accuse these black militants of not being radical

enough is suspect. Whether a person plays "Lefter Than Thou" or not can be determined by making a simple assessment of how much revolutionary action he takes other than at meet ings over, say, a period of a week. It will be seen that observed closely, the activity of a "Lefter Than Thou player occurs mostly in the form of an intellectual "head trip" at meetings and hardly ever in the real world. "Lefter Than Thou" players will excel in destructive arguments or sporadic destructive action when sparked or impelled if

by

But

be seen that they lack the capacity in creative or building work and that they lack the capacity to work alone due to the extreme intransigence of the Pig Parent in their head which others.

to gather

it

will

momentum

will defeat, before

it

is

born, every positive, life-giving

effort.

appears, therefore, as if that extraordinarily divisive "Lefter Than Thou" is played by persons whose oppression has been largely oppression of the mind. This It

game

form of

intellectual oppression, a Calvinist "morality of

the intellect,"

is usually accomplished in a liberal context in the absence of societal or familial application of force,

a context in which action or force is actually disavowed so that the chains that bind the person are strictly psychological or within the head, yet most paralyzing indeed. When anger is felt it is not expressed physically but in the form of destructive talk. Movement groups are especially vulnerable to destructive talk as their leaders are often in awe of and mys

by intellectual accomplishment. It must be remem bered that a game has to be played by the Victim as well as the Persecutor. The Victim in this case being the lead-

tiffed

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

21

under attack who, ordinarily, are more than willing to submit to the persecution of the "Lefter Than Thou" player. This willingness to respond to "head trips" and intellectual arguments is a characteristic ers of the group

of certain cultural subgroups, so that while a "Lefter player would be scoffed at and ignored in a

Than Thou" very clearly

Than Thou"

action-oriented movement group, "Lefter players have a capacity to affect the decisive-

ness of the guilt-ridden intelligentsia.

This game is a liberal, intellectualized form of the aggressiveness that has been observed among the oppressed poor and the black. It is a well-documented fact that crimes against persons occur mostly between members of oppressed subcultures. Fanon in Wretched of the Earth illustrates how the savage, homicidal, and capricious criminality that has been observed among Algerians dissolved when the war of liberation became established. The supposed fact that Algerians are born criminals, taught even to Algerians by the faculty of Algiers, was not only not a fact but a mystification of their oppression. The actual fact of the matter is that the oppressed, when they have no access to their oppressors, either because their oppression is mystified or because their oppressors are not within reach, are likely to wind up at each other's throats. "Lefter Than Thou" is a case of the frustrated and mystified oppressed seizing the throats of their brothers

and

because of an incapacity to engage in

sisters

positive, creative revolutionary action.

The measure of that she or

he does.

a revolutionary's worth

When

ness of the leadership of a group or the

the

work

work of a group, "What work

question to that person should be,

the

first

are

you doing?"

critic is

is

a person questions the effective-

a person

that person

is,

It will

who

is

be found that in most cases the doing very

little

or no work. If

in fact, contributing a great deal of

work

outside of the discussions at meetings, then the challenge of the validity of the leadership's goals

and methods

is

again open to question. Thus, the demystification of a

RADICAL THERAPIST

22

is a very important tool in the movement group. cohesive a maintenance of Another usual attack upon movement groups which is

critic's

actual

work output

also quite effective

is

"leveling."

Leveling, hierarchies, and leadership greatest single evil in mankind is the oppression ordinarily of human being by human being. Oppression in situations hierarchical of form the expresses itself in

The

which one person makes decisions for others. It has been all evils the wish of many to eradicate this greatest of comhave people some from their lives. In order to do so attempted have and situations hierarchical pletely leveled leadership, in to function socially in the total absence of which the hope of building a society without hierarchies in breeding a find cannot oppression the greatest evil

—

—

ground. pig, authorization hier have attempted to work in

With the specter of the worst archy haunting them, people

organizations which have been leveled of all hierarchies. more In my opinion such organizations, when they involve

chance than about eight persons, have an extremely low of survival.

When

"levelers" enter an organization and

impose willy-nilly a no-hierarchies principle they usually bring about the ultimate destruction of the group. demonstrate the fallacy of leveling of alternative to hierarchies, and will attempt to present an rational use leveling which I believe is capable of making while preof the valuable qualities of leadership in people which oppression that extension of leadership into I will attempt to

venting is

such a scourge upon humankind.

me

define some terms: the domination by force or threats oppression I will call another. by person one of force of least publicly, I will call leveling a situation in which, at no leader is recognized and no hierarchy is allowed in a First let

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY group, even though leadership and hierarchy

may

23 in fact

exist.

I will call a hierarchy a situation in which one human being makes decisions for other human beings. I will call a leader a person in a group who is seen as possessing a skill or quality which causes others to wish to learn or profit from that quality. Hierarchies come in a great variety of forms, from the

murderous hierarchies in a capricious war to the motherchild hierarchy, including the hierarchies between teacher and student, man and woman, black and white, master and slave, factory owner and exploited worker, foreman and journeyman, craftsman and apprentice. Some of these hierarchies are alienating and dehumanizing. Others are not. To relate to all hierarchies as if they were all dehumanizing and evil is a great error, bordering on mindlessness. Hierarchies should be analyzed in terms of wheth-

er they affect

human

There are at

beings well or badly.

least three

of obvious value to

human

hierarchies

humankind and which

which are would

clearly

not profit from being leveled. The first and most basic hierarchy is the hierarchy between mother and child. Here one person makes decisions for another person and it is difficult to see how leveling this hierarchy would be of any advantage to humankind. When this mother-child or parent-child hierarchy is extended be-

yond its fruitful and natural reach, namely when it is imposed by force or threats of force and beyond the period in which the child needs parental protection and when it is extended to large aggregations of people, then this parentchild hierarchy becomes the model for the military, the great corporations and so on. Another such is the hierarchy between a human being who is in great physical pain or need (the sick, the hungry, the wounded, the deranged) and another human being who has the means to fulfill that need. When a person is in dire physical need he may wish that another human being will make decisions for him. Again, this natural hierarchy which is conducive to well-being can be ex-

RADICAL THERAPIST

24

tended into one that is damaging as has been the case with the hierarchy that has been created by the medical profession and the attending psychiatric and other mental health professions. Again, the continuation of the need necessity, the continuation of ministration beyond necessity, the encouragement of the preservation of the hierarchy even in the absence of physical need, have re-

beyond

sulted in a hierarchical medical establishment which at this point may be doing more against human health than for separates medical it. This may sound startling but if one

knowledge which is vast and potentially helpful from medical activity which is self-serving and oppressive one can see that the medical establishment is not only not fully serving humanity but holding back potential help

from

A

it.

third hierarchy

is

based on differences of

skill

be-

tween human beings in which one person who can be considered a craftsman is sought out by another person who wishes to learn her craft. This hierarchy in which one person places himself below the other in knowledge is desirable to both. The apprentice, by recognizing his need to learn and by riveting his attention to his master, is likely than to acquire a skill more quickly and more thoroughly

the a student who questions the master's knowledge. On and attention the given is who teacher a hand other recognition of an apprentice finds his teachings the greatcraftsman and est rewards for his life effort. Both the to see the apprentice profit from this process, and it is hard is damaged student, the especially them, of either how by it. Again, this natural hierarchical situation can be extended beyond its necessity so that certain persons are respect forever kept in an inferior position to others with most uniskill. This, of course, is the basis for to their

and professional schools and is again an example extended into an of where a natural hierarchy can be one. evil and oppressive hierarchies that they It is characteristic of humanizing

versities

are

first,

voluntary; second, bent

tion or self-dissolving.

upon

their

own

destruc-

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

25

All three of the above mentioned beneficial hierarchies can be extended into oppressive ones. The tendency toward dehumanizing hierarchies that may exist in human beings can be overcome by human beings who decide that they wish to do so. That very same tendency can be empowered by the human intelligence as has been done, to the point of building monstrous hierarchies which may now consume us. As human beings we have the choice between mindlessly extending natural hierarchies to the point where they will devour us, or equally as mindlessly leveling and abolishing them, or using our intelligence, wherever it suits us, to create groups with humanizing, beneficial

when needed. wish to postulate an intelligent principle of authority which discriminates between hierarchy and oppression and which I hope will be useful to people working in movehierarchies I

ment

organizations.

The

first

principle of

human

hierarchies

is

that they be

voluntary and that they be self -dissolving, that is that the eventual historical outcome of the group's work be to make the hierarchy unnecessary. The second principle of human hierarchies is that leaders shall be responsive and responsible. In order for a hierarchy to be voluntary it cannot involve oppression or coercion by force or threats of force. As a consequence, no one shall use force or threats of force in any situation relating to human beings within a movement or an organization of which he's a member. Intimidation of group members by psychological means (pigging) must be avoided by developing an atmosphere of mutual protection between group members. Responsive leaders are leaders that are available for criticism by group members. Thus leadership can be extended only as far as it remains possible for all group members to make extended face-to-face contact with the leaders. is one who feels the impact and takes responsibility for them. a human quality which can only be assessed by ob-

Finally, a responsible leader

of his or her actions

This

is

26

RADICAL THERAPIST

is judged from the leader's previous actions and can only be ascertained over a period of time during which his or her work is open to scrutiny and during which the important quality of responsibility is

servation. Responsibility

observed.

The same kind of guilt that operates in the leadership when faced with "Lefter Than Thou" players comes into effect when confronted with a leveler. The self-doubt of a leader is the greatest aid to the leveler. Oppressors don't respond to such attacks at all, but good leaders are prone, because of their basic wish to be responsive and responsible, to allow the attacks of a few to vitiate their useful work for the many. Thus when faced with such attacks leaders should responsibly investigate their work and responsively obtain feedback from all the group's members before abdicating their

Only if this analysis reinforces the levelers' argument should a leader allow that most precarious pro-

leadership.

cess, leveling, to

occur in the group.

How To Be a Radical Therapist Richard Kunnes,

Rick Kunnes

is

an

activist

M* D»

affiliated

with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine department of psychiatry. Richard Kunnes, MJ), All rights

©

reserved.

The word "radical" comes from the Latin radix, meaning "root." The radical therapist, therefore, gets to the root or cause of the issues before her (him) and does something about it recent cover of The Radical Therapist

A

said:

"Therapy means

political

change

.

.

.

not peanut

butter." This implies that the root issues the radical therapist deals with are political.

tactics

is about how one attempts to be a radical and more importantly, a political person. The described below are by no means limited to ther-

apists.

The

This article therapist,

fact that they are not limited to therapists is

an example of the breakdown of the 'artificial barrier which separates "therapist" from "patient." I have nothing to say that hasn't been said and done in numerous other circumstances. This article

is

simply a review of a number of

27

28

RADICAL THERAPIST

known

political tactics

at those

and the theory and aimed

(practices)

strategy relevant to them.

The

article is particularly

working in "professional"

settings, especially in

institutions.

To

state the obvious,

all

the tactics are public,

i.e.,

be seen and felt by more than one or two people. The tactics are aimed at placing oppressive institutions in a bad light; they hopefully change people's heads in a political way. Many of the tactics are incredibly primitive and simpleminded; however, we don't always think of them and/or do them because of the oppressive mind-fuck that Amerika has become. As an example of primitiveness, note the second sentence of the first paragraph where ". her (him)" is used in place of just "him," hopefully providing a small jolt to our conventional sexism. Another syntactical jolt is when writing about the lower half of Vietnam, write south Vietnam (small s) to signify that there is no such country as "South Vietnam" and that the division of Vietnam is an they're geared to

.

.

illegitimate one. All therapists' language, papers,

and

life-

should be full of similar jolts. To the degree possible, every word should be a guerrilla theater in miniature. Wear a political pin to work, put a political poster in your office. The more outrageous, the better. People ask questions about pins and posters, rap with those people. Hospital administrators and other institutional types get pissed off and attempt to suppress such overt political behavior simple as it is. In 1968, in the department of style

—

psychiatry of Columbia University, young psychiatry residents were forbidden to wear "McCarthy for President" buttons. While there was no successful organizing around this issue, the politics of the institution were widely ex-

—

and just with a political button. Along the same path, women at work can challenge sexism by wearing slacks, men can challenge professionalism by refusing to wear a tie and always wearing jeans. One's politics should be "up front" where they can be seen and talked about, that's what makes them political. All institutional and professional meetings and conferences

posed

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

29

—

should be politically confronted doing anything from your hand to make a politically relevant point, to depositing a stink bomb (isobutyric acid) at a particularly piggish meeting. Do anything to make an administration uptight. Demand to have radical speakers, radical seminars. Demand that nonprofessionals and "patients" be featured speakers and demand that they be paid what the "professional" speakers get. Demand day-care centers. Demand that all professional and administrative meetings be open, not only to lower echelon professionals and workers, but to the community. Talk to your fellow workers about this and to the administration stir them up by giving them advance notice of what you intend to do; that way they'll be sure to overrespond. Publicize your demands with leaflets inside and outside the institution, especially in the most public areas, e.g., entrances, cafeterias during lunch time, the boss's office. Do a sit-in in a director's office; call the press (ask for city desk and definitely call the wire services) Just threatening to do this is often enough to get a response, and the administration's response is always an advertisement for your politics. Five people with large, visible, politically appropriate picket signs marching inside and/or outside creates a tremendous political presence. Some of the recent convention conferences were disrupted by only three or four people enough to make the European newsraising

—

.

—

papers.

Set

up a

radical literature table adjacent to or

on the

your place of work and/or your waiting room. Do a power structure analysis of your institution and distribute it. Every single hospital in this country has on its board of directors somebody making millions on the war and/or pollution and/or slum landlordism. Expose them. Fight to get rid of them, not that that in itself will solve the problem, but it will educate people politically. Attempt inside of

to delineate publicly their relationship to institutional ex-

pansionism, dual and racist systems of service, racist and sexist admissions policy. Virtually every single hospital and educational institution has investments and stocks in war

RADICAL THERAPIST

30 industries

and/or pollution makers. Expose these contra-

dictions.

Demand power

decentralization,

community control

of

worker control of the work setting, open admissions and career ladder programs that are open-ended at the top. Radical staff and radical patients should write and services, student control of education,

distribute a radical newsletter.

The

newsletter staff should

and a phone extension where contact with newcomers and recruits can be made. Ask the boss or a

have an

office

board director for interviews. Yes, there is the danger of being fired and each person must judge the risks accordingly. However, if it's any consolation, it's a great issue to organize support for people who are fired and/or striking. Expose the benevolent neutrality and "value-free" science of your local institution.

For those of you who are a

little

more

clandestinely

have a few thousand ll-by-3-inch stickers saying "Free Angela" or "Community control of " (fill in name of appropriate institution) or "Vietcong have won" or whatever. Place the stickers on inside and outside walls. Or glue on large posters. Powdered milk with a little water

—

oriented,

makes

fantastic paste.

Look ing,

for potential allies in people doing union organiz-

young

students, the

community

allegedly served,

and

alienated professionals.

Do

two, three,

of political entry.

many

actions.

Organize different levels

For example, "consciousness-raising"

groups for men or women might be an easier point of entry than sitting-in or picketing. Or start with a radical study caucus. Present a patient's case history emphasizing politically relevant points, concluding with a political analysis, not a psychoanalysis. If you decide to have any meeting that has some political potential, advertise for it heavily, making sure the boss knows about it so that, hopefully, he (bosses are almost always "he") will respond. If a meeting room isn't available,

demand and

to separate

fight for one. Always try to draw you and your people from the boss.

lines

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

31

Demand

changes in services and expose their deficienFight to change teaching and research priorities to service priorities. In state hospitals and institutions of an Insane similar quality, try to move staff and "patients" Liberation Front, if you will. For example, at most state hospitals at least some patients lie in urine-soaked sheets

cies.

—

all

day.

Complain to the administration,

leaflet patients

and

hold meetings in hallways and administrative offices, and even finally call in the media for a urine-dumping staff,

ceremony on the

boss's desk. innovative services, e.g., home care, outreach, and preventive services. To see real alternative and innovative services, encourage people to go to Cuba, especially on the Venceremos brigade. Fight involuntary commitment without a trial Be part

Demand

movement: and legally inform patients (so-called "informed consent"). For example, most patients receiving research drugs or on research wards have no serious understanding of what's going on or why they are on a research ward, as opposed to a standard ward or of a patients' rights

Expose

failure to properly

even in the hospital. If patients are research subjects they should be paid accordingly. When you do "therapy" always suggest various political settings to help "patients" deal with their alienation and oppression. Always attempt to help patients understand the political causes of their "symptoms." Suggest to your patients that they work with existing political organizations, e.g., women with Women's Lib; anybody with a Panther Defense Committee. Support in any way all segments of the population particularly oppressed by psychiatry, namely blacks, Latins, women, homosexuals, youth, prison inmates, and anyone doing something politically relevant. Help raise bail for any political prisoner, especially if she or he is a member of the same oppressed group that you are, e.g., blacks, women, homosexuals. At your next regular conference, rather than somebody presenting a paper, do a guerrilla theater demonstrating what sexism is like in the "thera-

32

RADICAL THERAPIST

peutic" setting. If you're a therapy student and written tests are given, distribute your own countertest, a test that asks real questions, especially about the institution you're

and about the institutions of psychiatry and psychology. Encourage patients to talk to one another, to help themselves understand the collective nature of their symptoms. Encourage patients to take any of the abovementioned actions and any other political actions, even if it is simply getting a group of patients to get themselves together to go down to the local radical "coffeehouse" or at

rap center to help discuss political issues. Since even the most "private" hospitals and institutions have the major portion of their funds coming from public sources, demand that board of directors meetings be always open to the public. Demand that budgets and contracts be available for review. Work with community groups fighting for community control. Embarrass and expose institutional failures by providing services it doesn't, but should provide. For example: 1. Lead poisoning is a major cause of mental illness and mental retardation in children in metropolitan areas. Go to your local health department, get lead-screening kits and go door-to-door in poorer neighborhoods, especially accompanied by such groups as the Black Panthers. Any child with a positive test for lead should be brought

to the hospital. Explain to each family seen why you're, going door-to-door, the politics of slum landlordism, and

how it is a direct cause of lead poisoning and mental illness. 2. Malnutrition is also

in

poor children.

a major cause of mental illness survey. Rip off a micro-

Do a nutritional

hematocrit centrifuge to do iron-deficiency anemia studies as a screening test for malnutrition. Malnourished children should be sent to a Black Panther breakfast program or its equivalent. Mothers should be pushed to work with the local welfare rights organization. The politics of expensive ghetto groceries, the welfare system, and racism should be discussed more than psychiatric symptoms. Push welfare and/or Medicaid doctors to write prescriptions for food. When institutional failings are noted, publicly expose

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

33

them; literally petition for change. Petitions themselves won't produce any results, but asking people to sign a petition at your centrally located petition table is a great way to start a politically relevant conversation. Use your professional prerogatives

and

privileges to infiltrate

and

educate.

n Many people complain about the disruptive nature of many of these tactics, particularly in regard to conventions. The argument is advanced that a disruption violates freedom of speech and press. It's our feeling that things such as freedom of the press belong only to those who own one. The same

applies to freedom of speech; if you don't have access to the media, all you can do is speak to yourself.

Therefore it's important to schedule your disruption before 1:00 p.m. in order to insure adequate preparation by the media for the six o'clock news. As Jerry Rubin says, if you didn't see it on TV, it didn't happen. Make sure you bring your own bullhorn when the microphone electricity is cut. Also bring a prepared press release signed by an organization with a telephone number next to it. You or your organization may then be invited to radio and TV talk shows, as well as interviewed by the press for further clarification of the disruption. If you seize control of a convention meeting you can run your own meeting, open up a real dialogue and truly have freedom of speech. Genuine and meaningful discussion cannot occur at a convention in Amerika without disrupting it. Turn the convention into a political education meet-

ing.

The

disruption

is

also a protest against the elitism,

racism, and sexism which abounds at any professional

convention, simply by virtue of

its

being a convention of

professionals.

And what discuss the

about those conventions and seminars which

war and racism.

It's

repressively tolerant to

have a "debate" about or a "vote" on the war or racism. White Americans have no right to discuss the fate of the

RADICAL THERAPIST

34

Vietnamese or of black people, except to get

off their

backs.

There are some other reasons why mental health conventions and seminars should be rightfully disrupted: seminars are 1. To protest the fact that conventions and the mental that pretend They a showpiece, a facade. health professions are open, responsive, and accountable. By definition, a profession is accountable only to itself and for that reason alone should be attacked. and 2. To protest the repressive ideology of psychiatry psychology which is both individualizing and alienating. really deal with 3. To produce a laboratory of reality to

mental health and mental illness. For example, many people in the audience will be far more enraged about a fact that disruption than they will be about the war. The to genothan disruption to one can respond more strongly society. our of oppression crazed the of cide is a measure 4.

To

de-legitimize,

mental health

demystify,

institutions.

After

and deprofessionalize anybody can take

all,

part in a disruption. the

importantly, 5. Lastly, and in some ways most privileges, role of exemplary action. With all our white-skin people white of example an the least we can do is to be is

in revolt.

Radical Therapy Needs Revolutionary Theory Terry Kupers Terry Kupers at

is

a psychiatry resident

UCLA, and a

Black

Panther

"Bunchy" Carter

A

physician for the Alprentice

Party's Clinic.

patient once objected to Freud:

my

"Why, you

tell

me

probably connected with my circumstances and the events of my life. You cannot alter these in any way. How do you propose to help me, then?" He received this response: ". . much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been yourself that

illness is

.

restored to health

you

be better armed against that of psychiatry to remain aloof from social realities and concentrate on merely "transforming hysterical misery" is being challenged by a growing number of radical therapists whose aim is to also change those "circumstances" by revolutionary practice. unhappiness." 1

will

The tendency

Unfortunately, many such attempts develop into a compartmentalization where social struggles are entered and experiments with therapeutic modalities occur but no synthesizing theory gives meaning or clarity to either

35

RADICAL THERAPIST

36

of this paper will be to examine viewing the individual mental illness and therapy from a Marxist perspective in seeking a unified and revolutionary praxis for radical therapists. This will include a criticism of approaches of many revisers and rejecters of Freud, an overview and methodology for criticizing, learning from, and replacing bourgeois psychiatry and an attempt to use some clinical observations to enhance and direct such an approach. There have been many attempts to revise Freud's essentially individual-oriented theory of neurosis so that understanding and solutions for pressing social problems can be included. Often, these revisions see Freud's biologism/psychologism as inadequate but go on to merely add reality variables and social factors without confronting basic fallacies in Freud's model (Erikson, Horney, etc.).

endeavor.

The purpose

possibilities of

Unfortunately, the attempts of many radical therapists have led to just as fragmented a theory because they attempt to bring their view of the individual into line with their revolutionary analysis of society and end in fractionation rather than integration. Herbert Marcuse points out

the attempts of revise Freud. 2

some notable

Fromm, Horney,

He shows how

Sullivan,

fallacies in

and others to

their theories, while attempt-

ing to place the human individual in control of the environment, actually end in a view of a too malleable personality of social forces than their molder. Marcuse's criticism of the fallacies and superficialities of the neo-Freudians is fine, but he himself never criticizes the more basic distorted assumptions of Freud, such as the instinct theory that Freud articulated to explain and excuse a static status quo of class domination. Marcuse seems to

more the victim

accept Freud's bourgeois illusions without real develop-

ment of evidence, perhaps might end in

less

for fear that criticizing

them

of a "depth analysis." Whether Freud

accepted as revised or entirely rejected and replaced, most attempts at radical therapy fall short of developing a model to integrate therapy with revolutionary struggle. Roger Garaudy, in discussing a methodology with which is

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

37

a Marxist must examine reality, says, "In our scientific representation of the world it is becoming, we find, more

and more

and

be ultimately impossible, what the thing would be 'in itself without us, and the knowledge we have of it. Scientific laws are not a copy of anything; they are constructions of our mind, always approximate and provisional, which allow us to take hold of a reality which we have not created, and of which only practice, methodical experiment, can guarantee us that our models correspond in some degree to its structure, that from a certain point of view they are at least 'isomorphous.' " 3 Freud certainly built an "approximate and provisional" model of the individual, but questions arise about his "certain point of view" (that of the Viennese bourgeoisie). This is because Freud was both influenced by and condifficult,

will

radically to separate in the object

.

.

.

tributed to "bourgeois ideology." Marx described ideology as "false consciousness" (since then, ideology has lost its specific

meaning and been defined

system of ideas).

The

in

common

capitalist class uses

usage as a such false conown overthrow.

sciousness, as well as force, to prevent its long as the masses view reality in a distorted fashion, they will not see how their real interests can be served only by a revolution. Television, radio, and advertising display

As

this false consciousness as

they develop in the minds of the the public ideas like "conspicuous consumption [color TV, new cars, etc.] is virtuous" or "cowboys and white soldiers are good while Indians [read: third world peoples] are savages and should be slaughtered." This ruling ideology has been imploded into all of us for all of our lives. It is the distortion of reality necessary for large numbers in this country to accept the reality of war against "them"

Vietnam or genocidal police attacks against "them" in our ghettos and barrios and to feel that this is "best for democracy." There has been no real problem for the capitalist system in accepting Freud's contributions as part of the "ruling ideology." Freud's effect in causing people to see their problems as emanating mostly from internal conflicts rather in

RADICAL THERAPIST

38

than from an oppressive and exploitative society is just one example of how this "false consciousness" can deter threats to the social status quo. In fact, Freud's treatment of women is a perfect example of how a distortion or

order to maintain a system of domination of the majority by the minority is built into

illusion that is necessary in

that system's ideology. The illusion is that the state of affairs we see now is natural, inevitable, and unchanging. Such an illusion is needed in order to keep the majority from moving to change the system. Freud builds this

When he observes that women occupy an inferior, dominated position in society, he assumes this is natural and will always be the case, so he looks to concepts such as "penis envy" to explain the

illusion into his theory.

inevitability of this inferiority. contributions It is very easy, then, to reject Freud's

the left do, as an "apology for however, fails to recogapproach, This the ruling class." There nize that ideologies both distort and reflect reality. the of representation is a kernel of truth in the "scientific "certain his of spite in ideologist world" by a bourgeois great waste if point of view" and distortions. It would be a eighty years of all of the observations and contributions thoroughly being without of psychiatry were rejected accurate and experiences which determine evaluated to can be incorporated into a Marxist or

mechanically, as

many on

reflections of reality

radical therapy model.

To do

this,

on several treated,

.

.

,

cnticizea Freud's model must be viewed and

levels:

sociological level (e.g., who is charged), the technical level (e.g., the ideological level, and the

on the

how much

psychoanalysis as a therapy),

of Freud s model at theoretical level. Examples of critiques sociological level, each of these levels include: on the of a tew interaction analysis can be a time-consuming clients; on the moneyed few a with privileged professionals introspection and excessive technical level, it can foster expression of anger soul-searching as an alternative to on the ideological environment; the and action to change social conditions which foster level it can play down the

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

39

unrest by attributing cause for revolutionary movements to "regression to the temper tantrum stage" (Bettelheim) or Oedipal rebellion; on the theoretical level, its static, a historical view sees the inferior status of women or violence or the nuclear family as inherent in the human species rather than as products of a particular period and particular social relations which can be consciously

changed. In addition to raising these and other criticisms of each level, it must be seen that the levels are interrelated. The fact that analysis is practiced mainly in places like Beverly Hills (sociological level) is not unrelated to the fact that the analytic model sees human nature as static

(theoretical level:

i.

e.,

since

it

is

static,

there

is

no need trying to change specific oppressing conditions). Both of these levels serve the purpose of continuing the status quo and fit nicely into the ruling ideology. Thus, practicing analysis in a ghetto would not change the basic distortions in the theory.

model must be examined on all of these radical therapy cannot so must its replacement. be substituted as practice without developing an alternative tendency to do so is seen in replacing the practheory. tice of "Freudian analysis" by the practice of "transactional analysis" and calling the result "radical therapy." This is not to say that transactional analysis may not turn out to offer some hopeful alternatives. Rather, shifting of practice without due consideration of the underlying theory Just as Freud's

A

levels,

A

often results in a superficial analysis or "pragmatism."

Pragmatism has long been a methodological prop of capitalism because, by its positivist explanation of reality, it tends to preclude understanding phenomena "by the root." Another problem is that even radical therapists, especially those with middle-class backgrounds, cannot be entirely free from bourgeois distortions emanating from the "certain point of view" or embedded ideology that they grew up with and live with. These distortions cannot be entirely overcome by a recent and conscious choice to accept a revolutionary or proletarian world view. How can that elusive reality be viewed as accurately as

40

RADICAL THERAPIST

possible in order that the best "isomorph" be developed leading to the best understanding of priorities for change?

might help to review an old fable that goes something Three blind men "discover" the elephant. One puts his arms around a leg and describes the elephant as a large "trunk like a tree." Another feels the side of the animal and describes it as a warm solid wall. The third pulls the trunk and gets sprayed by the irritated elephant, describing it as some kind of shower mechanism. If we for a moment compare the elephant with reality, it is as though we all see problems in the real world that need altering, but we all view the reality differently because of our different vantage points. Our class backgrounds, finite experiences, and the overwhelming complexity of reality itself prevent us from seeing the "total elephant,'* and thus from establishing efficacious priorities for meaningful change. Thus, as radical therapists, we "come out swinging," developing new twists to therapy and sporadic forms of participation in mass struggle, recognizing that social ills effect mental health but never completely clarifying how and why. Karl Marx developed the methodology to eventually grasp the "total elephant" and understand the individual and his or her relationship to society dialectical and historical materialism. According to him: "In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of producIt

like this:

—

tion.

The sum

total of these relations of production consti-

—

economic structure of society the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social conscious." 4 By viewing the mental health institutions and ness. therapies as superstructural ramifications of the economic base, changes can be actuated without distorted expectatute the

.

.

tions of the revolutionary implications of such change.

They do have some

effect,

as Engels pointed out:

political, legal, philosophical, religious, literary,

and

"The

artistic

)

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY we might add

[and

psychiatric]

development

rests

41

upon

the economic. But they all react upon one another and upon the economic base. It is not the case that the economic situation is the sole active cause and everything else only a passive effect. There is a reciprocal interaction within a

fundamental economic necessity which in the last instance always asserts itself." 5 As long as we are aware, then, of the illusions and distortions of psychiatry and how it relates to a total view of society and revolution, we can learn much from its observations. The concept of psychic determinism is an important reflection of reality that all behavior is ordered and follows understandable laws instead of being random and accidental. The concept of the transference distortion that present perceptions are disis similarly important torted by memories of past experiences. The use of psychiatric concepts such as these has led to profound insights about the workings of the mind in health and disease. As examples, three observations about psychosis follow: It is well known that a subject in an experiment who 1 undergoes nearly complete sensory deprivation soon experi-

—

—

ences hallucinations and delusions. 6 2) Similarly, often a severely burned person who is completely immobilized and strapped to an automatic bed with all needs attended by hospital staff subsequently

develops a psychotic episode. 3) Interpretations and feedback compiled while examining transference distortions of paranoid individuals result in understanding as best as possible their experience and paranoid stance toward their environment something as follows: "I am the center of something that is going on. I do not understand what is going on. Others out there not only understand what is going on but are in control and the cause of it. They must be in control since I cannot control what happens to me. They are punishing me for some unknown reason. I am powerless. I can only guess what is expected of me and hope to discover it in time to avoid

more punishment." This

selection of

some

of the

fantasies of people with paranoid distortions has obvious

42

RADICAL THERAPIST

dynamic and genetic meaning and derivation. Here it will only be considered as it aids in developing the methodology under study. All three of these observations of "psychotic" experience share certain common elements. There is a failure or dissociation in getting accurate feedback from the environment, deficient ability to act upon and interact with that environment, and probably a related sense of powerless-

ness and control

by external and variously unknown

forces.

Thus, feedback and control of the environment seem to be related to healthy versus psychotic mental functioning. These three concrete examples not only demonstrate the important reflections of reality which accompany the distortions of a bourgeois ideology, but they coincide strikingly with some of Marx's and Engels's statements. Marx did not develop as complete a theory of the individual as we might have liked because of the exigencies

which required his focusing phenomena. This does not mean the methodology he developed cannot be used by others to advance our understanding of the individual and mental functioning. Marx pointed out that knowledge of nature or the environment can only come through man's acting upon it and in of the revolutionary struggle

on

social

Engel's words, "it is only through the activity of man that the test of causality can be made." 7 Then, in his work on alienation, Marx showed how man has been deprived of

being able to mediate his own existence under capitalism. as independent producer once mediated his struggle to transcend nature via his labor, capitalism results in his alienation from the product of his labor, then from the labor process, then from his species being, and Marx always talked finally from other men (and women of man in the generic). Since man no longer owns the product of his labor but it confronts him as an alien and reified object, we see "the relation of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object exercising power over him. This relation is at the same time the relation to the sensuous external world, to the objects of nature, as an alien world inimically opposed to him." 8 Although this

Where man

—

TOWARD A THEORY OF RADICAL THERAPY

43

sketchy statement about Marx's concept of alienation is all space allows, it is apparent that Marx related the sub-

and powerworker for profit in a capitalist society. Marx thus captured each individual's feelings of depersonalization and estrangement and rather than seeing them as an inevitable "human condition" to be battled "all alone," he gave social meaning and collective hope for a historical transcendence of what bourgeois ideology (i.e., existentialism) sees as man's fate. Perhaps mental illness can be viewed in the same light. Marx's concept of needing to interact with to know the environment seems to parallel the incapacitated and immobile burn patient's or sensory deprived subject's probable wish to know and interact rather than to become a psychotic. Marx's development of the alienation of workers seems also to parallel the subjective "helpless controlled

jective feelings of despersonalization, despair,

lessness to the exploitation of the

—manipulated"

—

feeling of the paranoid individual.

What

mean? They

are not due to coincidence. The individual qua individual and the individual as part of society experience the same real world. Any phenomena occurring in the social realm will have an effect on the

do these

parallels

Marx described one side of this complex interrelationship when he said "the human essence ... is the ensemble of the social relations." He described another side when he said, "The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed precisely by men and that

individual realm and vice versa.

the educator must himself be educated." 9 The former side is used mechanically by some who say "capitalism

causes mental illness and socialism will cure it." The latter side is stressed out of proportion by Freud as he views the evolution of civilization as the struggle "between the instinct of life and the instinct of death as it works itself out in the human species." 10 Freud's onesided distortion of this relationship must result from his bourgeois vantage point from which he develops only

44

RADICAL THERAPIST

fragments of a total isomorph of reality. Marx's dialectical method should result in a less distorted understanding of the relationship between society and the individual in the case of psychosis. More work needs to be done to elucidate

a microscopic understanding of such relationships but it seems clear that it would be exceedingly difficult to end paranoia in a social system which ensures "alien objects exercising power over" the worker (alienation). Thus, a meaningful solution to mental health problems can potentially occur only after the revolution when, as Marx says, "freedom cannot consist of anything else but the fact that socialized man, the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally, bring it under their human control; instead of being ruled by it as some blind power." 11 (See Adam Schaff's Marxism and the Human Individual for a discussion of postrevolution alienation.)

A

The task for radical therapists is immense. unified theory of society and the individual must not suffer loss of depth or profundity in studying each and yet must not compartmentalize the two studies. The radical therapist must try to understand the bourgeois illusions and distortions in the field while he or she probably comes out of the same class experience that creates the illusions. The and class domination to mental must be understood without hindering the best effort alleviating mental suffering at each moment and within

relationship of society illness

at

the perspective of revolutionary change for society. Radical

must develop a theory of man and practice of therapy while integrating these into priorities and praxis for revolution. Only a radical therapy based on the Marxist Weltanschauung can accomplish all these tasks. Freud's limited view of man's fated "unhappiness" must be replaced by Marx's thesis, "Philosophers [and psychiatry?] have interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it." 12 therapists

Notes to

Mr* Kuper's Article

S. Freud and J. Breuer, Studies on Hysteria, York: Avon Books, 1966, p. 351. 2. H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, New York: Vintage Books, 1955, Epilogue. 3. R. Garaudy, Marxism in the Twentieth Century, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970, 1.

New

p. 62. 4. K. Marx, Preface to Critique of Economy, 1859.

Political

5. F. Engels, "Letter to Starkenberg, January 25, 1894," Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence, New York: International Publishers, 1936, p. 516.

Freedman, "Sensory Deprivation: Facts Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol. 132, January 1961, pp. 176.

S.

in Search of a Theory," Journals of

21. 7. F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, New York: International Publishers, 1940, p. 171. 8.

K. Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manu1844, New York: International Pub-

scripts of

Ushers, 1964, p. 111. 9.

K. Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," in Ludwig

45

46

RADICAL THERAPIST Feuerbach, by Engels, New York: International Publishers, 1941, p. 83. 10. S. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents,

New

York: Norton & Company, 1961, p. 69. Marx, Capital, New York: International

U.K.

Publishers, 1967, Vol. 3, p. 954. 12.

K. Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach,"

ibid.

IL "Mental Illness" Old and New

Letter

C.B. C. B. spent several years in mental hospitals and is now out.

Dear—

,

feeling broken as a human being and your which we received today made me think twice about the reason for this. Is it my illness creeping back again, as it often does, or is it a result of the system which

Today

I

am

letter

purports to "help" those who are ill? I feel less able to cope with the world than ever before. To be snatched from a world in which you feel you have a place (no matter how small) and purpose (no matter how insignificant) to a hospital is a most jarring experience. People need to feel they are contributing to the environment in which they live. You are in the hospital to "get better" and that's the only purpose. It would be sufficient if the patients were given some responsibility to this end. In the hospital you must 1 ) get up in the morning

not required); 2) eat, if you food that is planned and prepared by others; 3) take your medicine which is handed out at specified times by a uniformed nurse; 4) attend (in

some

want

places even this

is

to, at specified times, the

49

— 50

RADICAL THERAPIST

indeed there are any, that have no purpose other than to keep you "occupied"; 5) go to bed. It's a pretty dull existence in which everything you need is handed out in neat little packages—even the therapy not when you may need it most, but again at specified times. I guess any institution needs to keep a schedule, but, God, it's deadly for the patient. Pretty soon the patient begins to look around for some way of changing the careful orderliness of the routine and soon finds out that if you cause enough ruckus you can get 1) a needle; 2) in some places a straitjacket; 3) an isolation room; or 4) if the place is well staffed, someone to stay not less than three feet from you; or 5) sodium amytal which sort of puts you out of it in a high which makes the place more bearable. Not all outcries are made out of boredom and this wish to break the terrible efficient orderliness of the place, but I think a good deal of them are. What patients want is some recognition of themselves as individuals-reven the routine of making a ruckus doesn't satisfy the need for being recognized and appreciated as an individual who may have something positive to contribute. Instead they are reduced to making a fuss to change the routine. And even this is unsatisfying after a while . . Some people think that the means of dealing with upset patients is cruel. Really, it isn't so they are to the upset patient a means of getting a response that means his problem (even if not the real one) is recognized and dealt with. To the sick patient it is a form of love the only kind he can extract from his environment. In the hospital you learn that there are a very minimum number of things you must do to exist. This is the terrible message of the hospital. You don't even need to wash or brush your teeth to get along. All motivation is drained, for your very minimum needs will be taken care of for you. activities, if

.

—

—

carried with you when you leave. It doesn't what you do or don't do. On leaving the hospital there is the added problem of feeling guilty for not doing more than the minimum, but it is already engrained in you that nothing is really essential.

This attitude

really matter

is

"mental illness" old and new I guess

what

I

am

talking about

is

51

the fostering of depen-

—

the taking away of motivation to do for yourself. Even taking medicine (although I admit it's sometimes necessary) means to the patient that he is sick and can't control his own behavior. In the hospital the rewards for being "sick" are so much greater than the ones for being "healthy." The first hospital I entered. Essentially it was a drying-out place for alcoholics and a waiting station for those going on to other hospitals. I suppose its function was diagnostic. Therapy if any was provided by the patient's own doctor. Most of my time there was spent pacing the floors. Most of the anxiety there was not knowing what to do to help myself get better. I was still under the illusion, which Dr. B had led me to believe, that I would only be in the hospital a few weeks. I was anxious to get help so that I could return to the outside as soon as possible. There was no help. Only endless conferences about where I would next be sent. The weeks dragged into a whole month a long time for someone to just wait to dencies of already dependent people all

G

:

—

—

—

get help.

Pin

I would characterize this place as the one, which experience, gave the greatest rewards for being especially for acting out. I entered on a fairly "well" :

my

—

sick

still don't know, I was sent up which had patients who were more obviously sick. There was more staff, more medicine, more things you couldn't take with you on the ward. Oh yes, every time you changed wards your belongings were gone through with a fine-tooth comb to see if you had any forbidden items. And you yourself were looked over. It seemed almost a challenge to smuggle in certain items. There was the feeling that you were a dangerous person, not to be trusted in the least bit. This certainly makes you want to give them what they expect a wild unmanageable patient. And there were other rewards for being cuckoo

ward. For some reason I to the

th floor,

—

too.

You

got

much more

attention in

—

all

sorts of ways.

There was the pulse chart you had your pulse taken twenty million times a day and the yes, no chart for your

RADICAL THERAPIST

52

BMs. Every detail of your life was down on paper and what's more you couldn't see what was written about you, nor could you know your "diagnosis." I have said that these things are rewards, but in the end they are really not helpful in getting you better and out of the hospital. These things cater to the already sick person and his feelings about himself. For instance, the person who feels impulses to harm himself will feel more inclined to carry out these ideas if he feels that other people are afraid that will not be capable of stopping himself. He will carry out the expectations of others. There were other floors, too, each with different rules, and so I spent two years shuttling between the unrestricted and restricted floors. private p is a private hospital and I gather runs on funds from the families of the patients there. It is exorbitantly expensive. My uncle stopped paying them be-

he

me to stay there. It took them into a state hospital and during that

cause he no longer wanted six

months to

get

me

my bills mushroomed. The final bill was $40,000 which my uncle refused to pay. They later tried to sue my

time

mother but

settled

it

out of court. I don't

know what

the

no was. My feeling is that exsuch charge should patients, matter how wealthy the should orbitant prices. My illness was only fostered: why high prices for that? It was physically comfortable no

final settlement

I

hospital,

pay

fattenwith private rooms, and the food was edible (and

ing).

That was

all.

M

State Hospital: I first entered on the admissions than ward. It was a huge place, less physically comfortable first At better. ways some in but the two previous ones, thing of my one not had I gown. state a wear I had to away. own. Everything that was personally mine was taken

wardhad a bed in the infirmary of the admissions it. I felt on rails the with beds hospital one of those high so hopeless that I lay in it was the end of the line. I felt cigarettes bed for months getting up only to smoke four a week. times three treatments shock a day and to have myself. So feed to live to will enough have even I didn't even one thing was I was fed by someone on the staff. Not

I

— "MENTAL ILLNESS" OLD AND NEW

53

—

me

not even to feed myself. There wasn't and what there was I wouldn't speak to, so they didn't bother to talk to me, though that might have helped eventually. After all I was still alive and could hear most of the time. They didn't even respect my feelings enough to tell me that I was to start ECT. The morning after I arrived they herded me off with all the other patients to another building. I didn't even know where I was going. We waited (about fifteen or twenty of us) while we went in one by one. As you entered the room the ones who had already had their treatments were out on the beds. It was only then that I knew I was to have ECT. Quite a shock literally and otherwise. This went on, I later figured out, for ten weeks or more. Even after the shock treatments (it felt like the punishment I deserved) there was more lying around in bed with no one to speak to. Finally I came to one day and decided that (felt that) I wanted to right all this. The only fight I knew was against myself and, there being a limited number of night staff, I was put into a straitjacket more politely called a camisole. That was after three of them in one night the usual needle of Thorazine which further fulfilled my wish for self-punishment. The next morning I was carted off to the chronic ward. So far I had received no therapy other than the ECT. I really did feel that this was what I deserved. It's a punishment in that it dehumanizes you, but also a reward in that at least you are getting some sort of reaction out of the people around you. Again my things were combed over. I was stripped naked, notes were taken on scars and other identifying features, and I was again placed in a state gown. The ugliest things worse than potato sacks. Finally I got my clothes back and a therapist. He was a resident so that didn't last long. Things hadn't been going well. It was at that point I think that they gave up on me, for after the resident left I was not assigned another therapist. I had given up too! I was shuffled from one meanexpected of

enough

staff

—

—

—

—

as a child

—

clappers for

One

remember pounded on sticks or an hour each week. For most of us it was a

ingless activity to the next.

a rhythm band.

of the activities I

We

RADICAL THERAPIST

54

—

most degrading experience to have someone stand up in some front of you and tell you to beat the sticks in time to horrible march music or other. Without further treatment, someone decided that I needed to be rehabilitated so I was sent to the bag factory. For someone with a college background to be sent to fold bags (we got paid for it) was degrading enough. Everyone around you hallucinating ... but for all this we were after paid (if you worked hard enough) $5 a month. I felt was a month or so working there that if that was all I

good

for the rest of

my

life I'd

rather not live, so for the

second time in that hospital I rebelled in the only way and ended up in the inagainst myself I knew how again. I don't know how long I was on firmary on them that time. I expect not as long as before. The one

—

—

ECT

M

is that if you were well enough good thing about the grounds with another around wander least at could you

thousands person. This brought me into contact with the of them Most at people of the world's forgotten years at spent had and minds their of out were obviously identified with the place and were fully institutionalized. I them and at times felt that theirs was my fate also. Everytheir social thing was provided them by the state. All

M

.

were planned out and everywhere we went we on the were herded like cattle except in our "free" time activities

grounds.

wearing the clothes that had been They were old and I was also lucky mine. were out of date, but at least they a store on the was There allowance. in that I had an meals. Our even and snacks get could we where grounds of eatmg. one primitive only pleasure then became the very on my staff the that in lucky About the staff—I was decent pretty good. My group leader was a very

I was lucky I was mine before I went

still

into the hospital.

ward was nurse. The and humane sort of person as was the head werent they least at but rest were mostly condescending As I wards. some on were they as physically abusive of sometimes havmg privilege the given was I better got to their problems, coffee with the staff and I used to listen

55 which was a switch from anywhere else I had been. It had making me feel worthwhile in some sort of way. It bridged the gap between patient and staff and we became friends, sort of on an equal footing. The two of them were decent, though simple people, with real human concern. Mrs. SI remember did administer those thirty or so needles I got one week. Boy was I sore. I had done some acting out and the doctor who didn't know me very well thought that maybe I should have more shock treatments, go to the violent ward, or have the four shots a day. He decided on the latter. That was real punishment! But being sick I thought it was what I deserved again. I was beyond pain. It seemed I could endure any kind of physical pain without even wincing or saying ouch! I even had some stitches put in without a local anesthetic, and it didn't seem to hurt. I guess I had cut the nerves. Being in a state hospital where the length of your stay is limited only by your lifespan is a very depressing feeling, but even more depressing than that is getting so acclimated to being dependent and taken care of that you begin to look forward to the few activities that are available to you without a thought to the outside. Indeed it's rather frightening after being dependent for so long to think of making it on is particularly reyour own in the outside world. moved. It's a community unto itself even has its own electric power plant, laundry, etc., etc. The atmosphere is depressing nobody leaves unless they run away. This is almost always true once you get beyond the admissions ward. I only know of one or two persons who have left my ward and only one other besides myself have stayed out. People have left, but only to return in a week or month in worse condition than when they left. Something must be wrong with the system somewhere. Eventually I felt I was Well enough to look for a job in town. Like most hospital towns, the townspeople are very much afraid of the hospital and of the patients it houses. This is another aspect of mental health in which work needs to be done public education. Needless to say no one would give me a job in and I spent long the effect of

M

—

—

M

—

— 56

RADICAL THERAPIST

hours answering every ad and going to places where there is a frequent turnover. It was disheartening to finally make the decision to return to the world only to be turned away. entered a sculpture course at the community of the aides used to pick me up she was a student there and the teacher found out somehow that I was a patient at the hospital. She made things difficult I finally

college.

for

me

One

—

—

after that in subtle

One day

ways, criticizing

the local newspaper

came

my

work,

etc.

to get a story about

the class and the photographer wanted to take a picture of me and my sculpture. She kept saying, "No, not that

one. This one is really a better one," etc. The photographer ignored her and took my picture anyway and ran the picture of me and the story in the newspaper. That was a good one on her! But it just goes to show the prejudice that does exist The most frightening thing I found about B was that there was no one to introduce you to the routines of the ward. It took me three days of questioning to find out where and when to wash out my underwear! The aides had no patience with explaining things to you. You are

—

.

R

.

.

:

plopped on the ward and that's it. If you don't do things you should you are in for verbal and physical abuse

that

by the aides. Needless to say, the place is a real snakepit with mice and no doubt rats (though I never saw any rats).

My

and all personal belongings were confiscated. have to protect yourself against the other patients. I was attacked twice I think because I looked so scared. Stealing was rampant. You had to carry all your things with you including toothpaste, comb, cigarettes, etc., and sleep with them under your bed at night! The admissions procedure was horrifying. Some aide, who should have been on the ward herself, stripped me of all my clothes but my pants with men walking around it was most humiliating. She kept yelling at me to hurry and when I wasn't fast enough to suit her she started 101. It was pushing me around. I had my temp taken noted in the chart but nothing was done about it.

You

—

glasses

—

—

—

.

"mental illness" old and new

We

57

to sleep in the hall. The only way I got a bed night was having another patient fix one up for me again I didn't know the procedure. She was the only kind person there. She sort of had a deal with the staff for doing those extra things, I guess, in return for some

the

had

first

—

kind of special treatment.

B was the most dehumanizing place of all. Apparently I was on the worst ward there. I have heard since the patients that all the wards are not as bad as that one not so wild, the staff not so abusive but it's still B and I think the place lives up to its reputation. I went to in a paddy wagon with the little men in white B coats (I never really thought they existed) and a police escort. It really made me mad because as upset as I was

—

—

could have gone with a friend and admitted mybeing committed. That really is a rotten feeling to feel that you have been put in an institution against your will without being able to get out. I was fortunate in being there only three days. Even those three days have left their imprint on me. The Day Care Center: This place is going in the right direction it seems to me. The program is run by the It's very frustrating having to democratic process make decisions all the time and even harder to stick by I think I

self instead of

K

.

them

.

.

.

.

staff is there to point out ways of looking at problems through questions. The emphasis is always on feelGradualings. It gets to be a little wearing after a while ly though things do happen. At first it was a shock to know my own diagnosis, but after all it's just a label for what I have been going through for years. We make our own decisions, we are responsible for being there, we take our own medicine, we make our own lunches, plan them, clean up after ourselves. In other words we are given more responsibility for our own lives. We are not treated as dangerous or helpless individuals . Therapy is change not adjustment. This I think is the basic idea of the clinic. The idea is not to quickly patch up an individual so that he may return to a job or whatever,

The

.

.

.

.

.

58

RADICAL THERAPIST

but to

make an

individual content with himself and free

to express himself creatively

The

.

.

.

H

and I stayed up all had no emotion while writing this until the next morning when H had left for class. Then I became upset and was urged to go to the clinic. I showed them there what I had written. My doctor believed that it was good and that copies should be made to give to the adone of the adminisministrators of the clinic. Dr. R trators, read it the next day. His reaction was completely different. He was defensive and thought that the feelings I expressed were just written by a sick individual. He kept asking, in a very "professional" noninvolved tone, what I had done to make myself more independent. It was a real put-down. I felt very angry and depressed until I started to realize that it was his problem not mine Dr. R 's reaction to me is just what I have been talking P.S.

night

—

night I wrote this

I

,

.

about I'd

—

.

.

the condescending attitude of professional workers. be interested to have your reaction.

Flection

/

Reflection

Mary Barnes Of her

particular experience at KingsMary Barnes has written a

ley Hall;

book with Joe

—Dr.

Joseph

Berke,

who guided her through madness, Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of A Through Madness, to be published early in 1972 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Journey

Flection Flection: the act of bending or the state of being bent. That's how I was at Kingsley Hall, bent back into a womb of rebirth. From this cocoon I emerged, changed to the self I had almost lost. The buried me, entangled in guilt and choked with anger as a plant matted in weed, grew anew, freed from the knots of my past. That was Kingsley Hall to me, a backward somersault, a breakdown, a purification, a renewal. It was a place of rest,

of utter stillness, of terrible turmoil, of the most and of peace, of safety and

shattering violence, of panic security,

and of

risk

and reckless

The world,

joy. It

was the essence

caught, held, contained, in space and time. Five years as five seconds; five seconds as five hunof

life.

dred years.

59

RADICAL THERAPIST

60

-

"second" family, Kingsley Hall, my "second" life, my a life. It was a within life, My me. within live may it ever I know what can How seed a kernel of the time to come. colors they the words, the will come. As I write, as I paint, sharp line, a part; and blend, shape, emerge, grow, take life, is full; coma paper, a canvas, The light. darkness; Through the halfplete whole. We are at one with God. to the God we stumble we life, light,' the blessed blur of

,«*'«*_-.

sense within.

Striving yet Knowing, yet unknowing. Seeing, yet blind. the height to depth own our Yielding; we reach out, from and bubbling held, is life all stretch our of heaven, and in as the clouds. moving water, deep as still joy; with breaking

Thousands, millions of

A

lives.

word, a color, alone yet

expanded consciousness, seeking How would I be a God." of "sight the participation in a part.

new I

One

place?

would

to live,

life

m

God knows.

let

everything "be";

and "Peters" and "Pamelas" be alone yet in communion,

all

I

the "Johns" and let "be."

'

We

would

Janets

should

communication, with each we have to germinate other. In order to come to the light in

in the dark.

We

; cannot be must go the way we are made, an oak

bent as a willow.

To

lay

down, to pray, to draw

What

in to the core of

place?

A house,

one

,

s

a com-

is to "start a place." wait and see what munity, a group of people? You have to will happen, and let it happen. inside the The place that you start is there already, and black heaven as white as It's come. people that will that s the because gray, is background the and hell

being,

;

as

mixture

we mainly

are.

to save souls. That's

How to build heaven

what

it's all

on

earth,

how

about.

" says Joe. "No," I replied, psychological terms." "I'll try to express it in desperate de"Dark night of the soul," deep despair,

"Don't be too

'spiritual,'

tormented with distrac-

pression; schizophrenia, split mind, of the self; "to die to the tions; cut off from God; division the self in the mother from self to live in God"; to get free

to live in

"mental illness" old and new God within the self; "our life as a

61

bird has escaped from the snare," from the bonds, or rather the emotional ties, of the past have I through psychotherapy been released. Different ages, different terms, the world eternal breath of God.

moves, in the

Reflection

Ronnie (Dr. R. D. Laing) told me "What you need is analysis twenty-four hours out of twenty-four." I was one of those people

who

just

cannot be healed through spas-

modic help, whilst living in an ordinary be

to

in a special place, a

situation. I just

had

house for madness.

It's the inner state that matters. But it's less sick people than I was who can get free, whole, through the ordinary course of life. Extreme states help to "bring it up," to uncover the real self, but to go further in extreme conditions is very rare. How many, in a prison, physically living with the family one was born into, or in a contemplative convent, reach through to integration, wholeness, sanctity? It's

what we are

all

made

for,

Yet, never, for one selves.

life

to achieve. it"

of our-

God, through other people reaches out to us and

draws us on. for

given time in this

moment, do we "make

many

It's

of us

wholeness.

We

a question of suffering but the suffering

—

means madness before sanity go from false self, to madness,

sanctity

to sanity.

Mother Mary of Jesus early in this century spent two years alone in her cell, in a sense sick, yet not physically ill, before she was able to participate in the life of her community. Many years later she founded thirty-three Carmelite convents in England, Scotland, and Wales before she died in 1942.

A

convent day school in London is boarding one of their older pupils, because she is in mental distress. But it is rare for an established community to accommodate itself to the needs of such people, and if these people were in

psychotherapy as such, with all the tremendous emotional upheaval that entails, it would probably be well nigh im-

RADICAL THERAPIST

62

possible to accommodate living conditions.

them within "so-called" sane

person cannot get free without being allowed extremes of behavior. Regression is a safety valve. Playing, bashing about, screaming, sucking, messing with ways of getting shit, lying naked, wetting the bed, are all body. the hurting the anger into the body without for a day, will alone being position, painful Lying in a resolve anger. But resolution through bodily pain, fasting, and isolation as all religious orders of all religions through at first, for people all ages practice is not possible, at least have to be They was. as I up, twisted very who are feel and allowed, encouraged, to be as "baby" as they in what participate can emotionally regrown until they development of level "spiritual" more might be termed a

A very twisted-up

one doesn't give a one-year-old baby tranmust one not quilizers or kneel him down to meditate, so beyond utterly madness in person have expectations of a him shaking just of danger is there Otherwise, his state. or shuttmg (a modern way of doing this is electric shocks) mental in a cupboard (the chronic ward of a Just as

him away

'

"

hospital).

The person must be seen and understood as the baby he is— and allowed to live that way, through it. He is dying to be loved, to be wanted, to be accepted. He has within himself to emotionally accept, to feel, all the through periods of anger, the anguish of the past, to go to be green with felt, be can deadness when nothing at all must be loved, he Still, jealousy. with envy and hating love. needs baby a as is, he what for totally, trust that Important as understanding is, it is love and can one so baby, her knows mother most. As a matter

of feeling is Intelcounts. that the heart, the feeling together later. Madness is the

"know" another person. Immediate response not in the head. lect

and

It's

feeling

come

and mothers love. nursery, not the library. Babies suck and lettered Let therapists beware of too much thought more akm is it of understanding words. (Madness and the as such.) activity, intellectual than to contemplation

'MENTAL ILLNESS" OLD AND NEW As

63

baby" with eyes tight shut I lay together "whole" on the floor. Anything more was "too much." Too much for my "wholeness." It was better to be "very baby" and whole than pretending and talking or Walking and split. Truth wells up from within, and living growing life brings changing forms and structures to suit the needs on one's being. (After psychotherapists the people I seemed most able to "meet" in madness, or "felt" nearest to, were -

a

"little

contemplative nuns.)

The

coming out of a straitjacketed, stereotyped unknown, long-forgotten life, is very great. Not iron bars or padded cells, not injections or tablets, but people, who love and accept, and know how and when to leave you alone, are what's needed. Given the fear of

existence to a consciously

soil,

a plant will grow.

How

to let go, lie

down, break, be

held,

be beyond

words, float, is a matter of trust. It's trusting God, through another person and no matter if so-called "mistakes" are

made, God doesn't "drop us." Through every shattering, smashing explosion our life is still there, more whole than before. Our will submitted we are yet free, and every happening is a growing step. When in a mad state one is "without words," in touch with the "hidden underneath" of another person. Very sensitive and fragile you respond or withdraw as a snail with a shell. The other person may have no idea what he is hiding, but you pick it up like

—

a magnet.

Madness

To go through it needs a guide, our world today, a psychotherapist. It has to be gone through, not round, and only someone else can keep us there. "You're a slippery eel; the more you suffer, the more free you get." So Joe (Dr. Joseph Berke) would tell me. is

purification.

in the terms of

When of ourselves we would give all, we must take half, and when of ourselves we would take half, we must give all.

Joe taught me a lot about this through food. If in the course of going through madness, the baby regressed state

RADICAL THERAPIST

64

above," the baby as it were sensing, termed seeing, as a "wise old man," and what might be be mystical experience is encountered, this should not "wallowed in." It's a drink, a refreshment, a shady tree, a the magnificent view, before again going down through

is

at times "leapt

woods. discipline Going through madness is a matter of right of instead us, serves and control. So feeling frees and flesh. Many on fire as evil feels saint binding and killing. A

of us feel

amiss,

we

The

that

is

not

evil as if it

was. Something

is

are astray, off track.

guilt, that brings us to a dead receiving of love impossible and makes all feel as ghosts and all creativity, causes us to

feeling of

stillness, is

much

shame, giving

a barrier to

death," -is a very bury our souls and bodies in "living great sickness.

emotions, are very twisted up so the feelings, the down. break is to not true, the impulse of the being death. "living or To resist is "screaming agony" madto make the break, to go through

When

To be

ness,

is

helped,

salvation.

Madness and Morals Morton Schatzman

Morty

Schatzman

is

an

expatriate

who

has worked in England the past half-dozen years developing a theory of antipsychiatry with Laing, Cooper, and others. Adapted from an article published in Counter Culture, edited by Joseph Berke (London: Peter

Owen).

Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness: and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things. But in my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone. My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise: nay, thou art perfect and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad

—

alone.

My

friend, thou art not

my

friend, but

how

My

make

path is not thee understand? thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand. Kahlil Gibran, shall I

—

The 65

Madman

RADICAL THERAPIST

66

peoreason to believe that a society which sees ill," and treats "mentally them calls ple as "mentally ill," acts the condithem as "mentally ill" aggravates by those tion which it calls "mental illness." breaks rules of People in a group label behavior which sinful, selfish, immalicious, criminal, bad, the group as on. They develop mature, foolish, idiotic, ignorant, and so and how to rules breaks criteria to judge which behavior labels to the these of any apply cannot label it. They break rules. behavior of some individuals who persistently behavior to this ascribed times and places

There

is

Men

in other Today, men in the witchcraft, spirit possession, or demons. same behavior the see world the of nations industrialized as

"symptoms" of "mental

illness."

have created norms to define be seen as real or unreal must cosmos which items in the what they say he and as inner or outer. If a man sees as real inner what they as or should see as unreal, or vice versa, if he armies and versa, vice or say he should see as outer, which they argument of style a by view this validity of

Men

in western society

the it at all, they are consider abnormal or does not argue society appoints Western ill." likely to see him as "mentally of its members some examine to psychiatrists as experts those rules for who break rules to discern if they break

which they can be called "mentally

ill."

a doctor to The tradition of scientific medicine teaches diseased persons towards attitude moral keep distinct his toward their diseases. his nonmoral objective attitude

from define for a psyBut the moral views of Western society mentally ul as diagnose may he chiatrist what persons if he especially and whom he may treat. A psychiatrist surveying with concerned works in a mental hospital, is must deny this if he morals and mediating rules. He to the prmcip es of adheres he that wishes to believe he sees "pathology m bescientific medicine. Although does it breaks rules, he because havior which breaks rules, conhe that say even not does not say so, and usually he hospital mental works in a siders it to break rules. If he and obedience rewards imposes rules on "patients," ;

"mental illness" old and new

67

punishes disobedience, and calls these activities "treat-

ment." In the more advanced mental hospitals he tutors "patients" to think, feel, and act "appropriately," and calls this "therapy." These maneuvers confuse many patients and induce them to respond in "abnormal", ways which the psychiatrist may see as more evidence of their "mental illness." Many "mental patients" have always understood this situation;

now some

social scientists, psychologists,

and Ronald D. Laing, Aaron Esterson, and David Cooper are psychiatrists in England who saw the need to create alternatives to the traditional mental hospital ward. David Cooper led people on a ward in a psychiatrists do. Drs.

mental hospital near London to question their premises and to change many customary practices. The Philadelphia Association, Ltd., of which Laing, Esterson, and Cooper were founder-members, has affiliated itself with several self-governing households in London in which people, most of whom have previously been diagnosed as "mentally ill," live outside the mental hospital system. They are more like hippie communes than like the most liberal

mental-hospital wards. I shall describe Kingsley Hall, the largest of them, after explaining the rationale for their existence.

Mental hospitals Present-day Western men presume that their cultural became enlightened around the end of the 18th century to a truth to which men had been blind for too

forbears

long: that madmen are sick men. The modern experience of madness has been governed by the conviction of "sane"

people that madness is really an illness and by their belief that this truth has been firmly proven by advances in scientific knowledge. They have converted the asylums into medical spaces where doctors have assumed the dominant roles. The doctors have based their powers on the presumption that they have scientific understanding of the inmates. This has been a disguise and a pretension, says

RADICAL THERAPIST

68

Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and psychologist. Psychiatric practice in the mental hospitals has been a moral tactic, cloaked with the dignity of scientific truth. The asylum, as set up by the doctors, has been from the beginning, Foucault says:

... a structure that formed a kind of microcosm in which were symbolized the massive structures of bourgeois society

and

its

values:

Family-Child relations, centered on the theme of paternal authority; Transgression-Punishment relations, centered on the theme of im-

mediate

justice;

Madness-Disorder

relations,

centered on the theme of social and moral order. It is from these that the doctor derives his power to cure . . .

Philippe Pinel was a doctor whom historians of psyas the "father" of the modern mental call the hospital, and whom apologists for the status quo he Insanity on Treatise In A insane." the of "liberator the suggested how to "treat" the "maniac, who under guilty of influence of the most extravagant fury shall be action." and language of both every extravagance, chiatry regard

... no more coercion is dictated by attention

is

employed than what

to personal safety. For genthis purpose the strait-waistcoat will be erally

found amply

irritation, real

avoided.

sufficient.

or imaginary,

Improper

is

Every case of to be carefully

application

for

personal

or any other favor must be received with acquiescence, taken graciously into consideration, and withheld under some plausible pretext, or postponed to a more convenient opportunity. The utmost vigilance of the domestic liberty,

police will be necessary to engage the exertions of every maniac, especially during his lucid or intervals, in some employment, laborious

otherwise, calculated to

and

attention.

employ

his thoughts

"mental illness" old and new

69

Although

he recommended the use of baths and "pharmaceutical formulae" like "antispasmodics" to calm the "tumult" of mental patients, he said that the fundamental "treatment" is "exclusively moral"

The extreme importance which

I

attach to the

maintenance of order and moderation in lunatic institutions, and consequently to the physical and moral qualities requisite to be possessed by their governors, is by no means to be wondered at, since it is fundamental principle in the treatment of mania to watch over the impetuosities of passion, and to order such arrangements of police and moral treatment as are

favorable

to

that

degree of excitement as conducive to re-

which experience approves covery.

He

said:

The

doctrine in ethics of balancing the passions others of equal or superior force, is not less applicable to the practice of medicine, than to the science of politics, and is probably not the only point of resemblance between the art of governing mankind and that of healing their diseases.

of

men by

"The Importance of an Enlightened System of Police for Management of Lunatic Asylums" is the title

the Internal

of one of the six sections of this book. The principles of "treatment" have not changed since Pinel, but the techniques have become more sophisticated. Tranquilizing drugs, electroconvulsive shock, and

coma maintain "order" and "moderation" more

insulin

effectively

than the straitjackets and antispasmodics did, and psychotherapy and therapeutic communty meetings are more likely to persuade "patients" to conform than was the moral instruction of the governors of lunatic asylums. The "treatment" which hospital psychiatrists give is still exclusively moral. Unlike Pinel, they do not say that it is

RADICAL THERAPIST

70

persons, like prisons confine deviant

Mental hospitals

since they do but they confuse their inmates more, even that they nor have broken, tell them what rules they hospital mental the in psychiatrist rules. The

not

have broken his colleagues tries to persuade himself,

m

the medical

the patients' "famfi.es profession, the staff, the "patients," medicine, and practices friends, and society that he occurs persuasion any that others denies to himself and all within a medactivities his frame To or is even necessary. judgment, trial, "examination"; a ical model he calls a correction and "disposition"; "diagnosis"; a sentence, they are not ill they "treatment." If his "patients" claim

Md

challenge his pretensions. which he copes wrth One must admire the ingenuity with sympton of basic a that presumes this contingency. He he is his faUure to know that the "mentally HI patient" is who doctor the with disagrees i

i»Zhe

patient"

teU "HI," the doctor does not no, does he noTdisagree/but that says he

is

him

that he should

, s^*£»-hat hehears me He HI because he is

ing and that he does not, HI as evidence that he is Patient's" statement that he is not and he tens him so "HI," is he to realize that doctor despite being told bjr his If a "patient" feels healthy he that him teU may not, and says so, the doctor

"Sin" that he

is

health. not motivated to regain his another twist a person _who by outwits The psychiatrist situato maneuver a social nretends that he is mentally HI psychiatrist fio sv^pec s a

is

tion

ta pSonal

gain.

The

the ^yn "diagnoses" him to suffer from a sick be to he considers drome" of feigning illness which If a Syndrome). (Ganser's nesslitha pZr prognosis not pretends but what is going on, m'n

person of

this

"does

Cws

and knows that he

is

pretending, the psychiatrist

may

see

pretendmg, but

he knows he as a man who thinks as pretending to Pretend. aTreally not pretending, and hs mttosays psychologist, American

to

is

Kaplan an Mental duSion "o The Inner World of what it was like first-person accounts of

m

11^ g to be

of

taUy HI,"

« men

"MENTAL ILLNESS" OLD AND NEW One

71

of the salient features of the psychopa-

thologies that are described in this

book

is

that

they are opposed to a normality which is intimately related to the major value orientations of western society. It may be asserted therefore that abnormality [psychosis] involves a negative relationship to prevailing social normative prescriptions perhaps the most extreme and complete form of negation that is possible. This is more than an abstract and logical conclusion. In the jargon of the moment we may call this "alienation." In this association of abnormality with a refusal to be bound by things as they are and with the striving to be different, we have what is at bottom a concern with the category of change and transcendence.

—

The same is so for many of the "mentally ill" who have not published their ideas. The disease spins off a runaway feedback loop: those who negate the prevailing social norms are negated by those who uphold them, and the upholders are negated in their negations of the negators not ad infinitum but ad the ascription by the negators of "mental illness" by the upholders upon the opposers. When Jeremiah broke an earthen vessel in the temple .

.

.

courtyard to pronounce and predict the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple police seized him, beat him, and

punished him publicly by putting him in the stocks. They did not, as far as we know, suspect him of "mental illness."

Recently,

man

a young

in the

forces, with a position in a chain of

NATO

command

to

military

push a

nuclear-missile "button," decided to refuse to obey orders

He told his superiors they should not command any man to do such a job. He was diagnosed

related to his job.

as "schizophrenic"

All that

is

and was

hospitalized.

certain about "mental illness"

is

that

some

people assert that other people have hv Epistemologically, "mental illness" has the status of an explanatory concept or a working hypothesis.

No

one has proven

it

to exist

RADICAL THERAPIST

72

nor has anyone described its attributes with scientific precision and reliability. and the Since mental hospitals regulate the behavior elseunequaled degree biochemistry of their inmates to a resist. and rebel "patients" world," where in the "free as a thing

Official psychiatry trains the

young

psychiatrist not to see

him to class in front of his face when it teaches situation as " their against attempts to protest "patients' to label learns He "illness." of "symptoms" and

what

is

"signs"

they make "patients" as "ill" with "personality disorders" if hospital the of problems for others by defying the authority chalopenly who those see to or of society. He is taught called "illness" an with "sick" as others of lenge the rules inhibit "psychopathy" or "sociopathy," and those who "sick" as consequences their challenge due to a fear of the treats He disorders." personality with "passive-aggressive inmay and drugs with "diseases" these of the "victims" "agitaout," see "acting sist on bed rest too. He learns to

and "withdrawal" as symptoms which they may be disturb his "patients" and not to see that them. disturbing is he that behavior this saying by

tion," "excitement,"

doctors in their first year of psychiatric training " responses to argue at staff meetings that their "patients' heard their have I valid. are hospital the in their situation yet "worked teachers tell them that they have not crises." through" their own "adolescent personality Wittgenwhat of case special is a What I describe here

Some

"bewitchment of our intelligence by means captive and we could of language." "A picture held us and language language our get outside it, for it lay in stein called the

not

seemed to repeat Laing says:

it

to us inexorably."

The concept of schizophrenia is a kind of conceptual straitjacket that severely restricts and pathe possibilities both of psychiatrists we can see tients. By taking off this straitjacket what happens. It has been abundantly shown in on the the field of ethology, that observations

"MENTAL ILLNESS" OLD AND NEW

73

behavior of animals in captivity tells us nothing reliable about their behavior in their own natural setting. The whole of our present civilization may be a captivity that man has

somehow imposed on himself. But, the observations upon which psychiatrists and psychologists have drawn in order to build up the prevailing picture of schizophrenia, have, almost entirely, been made on human beings in a double or even treble captivity.

The power

to confine people in mental hospitals, in-

them of civil liberties, and award to their medical governors license to formulate and execute rules to regulate their management and treatment derives from the state and is guaranteed by the law. The confinement of the "mentally ill" must serve a basic homeostatic function to sustain the social and political order in Western society since so many people are confined and so many work to voluntarily

if

necessary, deprive

define their limits of legal redress,

confine them.

Here is a schematic version of an actual story. Matthew, aged twenty-three, is from a devout Christian family. When he was twelve his father died; since thirteen he has slept in the same bed as his mother, at her request, because she has feared to sleep alone. He meets a woman of his own age whom he likes and whom he kisses one evening. That night "vampires" attack him in his sleep. When the nightmares continue, his mother takes him to a GP who tells her he shows early signs of "mental illness" and suggests he go into a hospital before his "disease" progresses further.

He

He

says

to his psychiatrist the next day, "Please help me.

You

enters a mental hospital as

are a messenger from God.

You

an

in-patient.

will decide

my

fate:

go to heaven or hell. Do I have any power to influence you? If I confess that I have masturbated, will I help my chances with God or hurt them?" The psychiatrist thinks Matthew is being "grandiose" and whether

I will

"overideational," and therefore diagnoses

him

as a "para-

RADICAL THERAPIST

74 noid

schizophrenic"

—

"grandiosity"

and

"overideation"

of "paranoid schizophrenia." The staff is due mainly to an inherited con"disease" think the stitutional biochemical defect. They believe the "illness"

are

"symptoms"

the sexual excitement stressed his delicate state. They do not implicate his mother's feelings and behavior toward him, or his toward her, as pertinent

appears

now because

to the understanding of his "illness." They see his mother as "nervous" about his health but they dismiss this ob-

servation as irrelevant. Besides, how can they blame her for her concern, especially since her husband has died from an illness? The hospital is a good place for Matthew: he will have a chance to rest because the rules forbid all

sexual contact.

him with a common tranquilizing thought to have an "antischizophrenic" aca tion. As the dose is raised progressively he develops new "symptom": he says he is "being poisoned." The common side effects of this drug occur at the same time: dry mouth, nasal congestion, blurred vision, constipation, drowsiness, stiffness of the muscles of the mouth, and occasional dizziness. The staff realize that the drug is responsible for these effects. Since the doctor has diagnosed him as a "paranoid schizophrenic" they see his of belief that he is being poisoned as a "progression"

The

psychiatrist treats

drug which

is

his "disease"

which

is

occurring despite the efficacy of

the drug.

The doctor raises the dosage of the drug. Matthew now shows the effects of high dosage: a pill-rolling tremor of both hands, masklike rigidity of his facial muscles, a stooped posture, and short quick steps when he walks. He reveals to an attendant on the ward that he has phoned the the municipal health department to complain that this done has hospital poisons its inmates, and that he to protect others. He frequently says that he is frightened. The staff now believe his "disease process" is worsening. The doctor adds a second tranquilizing drug, adminislarge tered by injection. Matthew develops a rash over a part of his body.

He

says that the doctors are "in league

"mental illness" old and new

75

with the devil" to arrange that he burns in hell for his sins, and that he would "rather die than suffer eternal damnation."

The staff see him as "deteriorating" rapidly despite the modern "treatment." They see his "illness" as "unresponsive" to drug therapy. The doctor orders electrobest

convulsive shock therapy. "Patients" often experience this therapy as an assault and they always suffer some memory loss after it. The doctor knows this but he wishes to help Matthew before it is too late. The staff do not see his behavior as a consequence of his experience of their behavior toward him. Here is an

some

outline of

transactions between

him and them

in

experience of his situation, and interpret his behavior as an attempt to cope with 'their behavior.

which

I infer his

He

sees from the posture which his psyadopts toward him and from what other "patients" tell him that the psychiatrist can assume much control over him if he wishes to. He hopes that the psychiatrist will not, but fears that he may. 2) He sees that the psychiatrist does not see himself as a powerful master who controls his charges, but as a doctor 1)

chiatrist

who

treats "sick patients."

He

fears that

if

he

the doctor he fears his power he may nurse tells him that "patients" offend him. 3) help themselves when they reveal their innermost thoughts to their doctor and the staff. 4) nurse tells him he is "ill" and belongs in the hospital. nurse's aide tells him that although he entered the hospital voluntarily, the psychiatrist can sign a form to confine him against his will. 5) He cannot obey the claims of both 1) and 3) unless he disobeys his consideration in 2). He cannot obey 2) unless he disobeys tells

A

A

A

demands of either 1) or 3), and if he makes a move to leave the situation he will disobey the advice of the staff and risk being confined involuntarily. He decides upon 6).

the

6)

He

tells

the doctor, "Please help me.

You

)

76

RADICAL THERAPIST are a messenger from God. You will decide ." etc. His what my ultimate fate will be religious upbringing colors the content of what he says. His dilemma imposes the necessity to speak in metaphor. 7) He does not realize that these statements lead his doctor to diagnose him as a "paranoid schizophrenic." .

.

Although staff "treat" a "patient" by frequently telling that he is "sick," they usually do not tell him his "diagnosis." Nor do the staff tell a "patient" which data his doctor thinks are pertinent to the "diagnosis," or how, or why he thinks the data are pertinent. If a "patient" asks to know this information, to which all the staff have

him

access, they generally reply evasively. 8) He is not sure why his doctor has ordered a drug for him. When he asks a nurse why, she tells him he is "ill" and that the drug will make him "feel better." 9) He tells the staff that this cannot be the right drug for him since he had

well before he took it and now feels ill. 10) His doctor says that the fact that he had felt well before he was given the drug does not prove that he had not been ill then since "mentally ill patients" often do not realize they are "ill." The nurses tell him at a ward meeting that he should trust his doctor since the doctor is felt

and he is not, and that "symptom" of "mental illness."

trained in this field

"mistrust"

is

a

He mistrusts those who when he felt well and that the drug they give him can help him to "feel better" when it makes him feel ill. He mistrusts them more when they tell him he is ill if he mistrusts 1 1

tell

He

feels confused.

him he was

ill

them. How can he influence the doctor to change his "treatment" and conceal that he mistrusts the "treatment"? 12) He says he is being "poisoned." In this way he both conceals and reveals his mistrust. Since he does not know the doctor has diagnosed him as a "paranoid schizo-

"mental illness" old and new

77

phrenic" and has ordered the drug to "treat" this "disease," he does not realize that by saying he is "being poisoned" he brings about what he most fears an increase in drug dosage. :

I leave

story

it

to the reader to complete the analysis of the

from here

to the

doctor's

decision to administer

electroshock therapy. I have heard many ex-mental patients tell me of experiences in mental hospitals similar in structure to my inferences about this man's experience. I read this story

them and they all confirmed that they had found themselves in predicaments like this one, with which they had found it difficult to cope in a sane way. Mental hospitals entangle all their "patients" in knots which are

to seven of

so constructed that the "patients' " struggles to untie

them

tighten the knots.

The staff's practice of translating interpersonal events within the hospital into terms of a medical model bewilders the inmates, many of whom are befuddled already before coming to the hospital. Goffman, a sociologist who studied the social world inside a large American hospital, says: .

.

.

whatever

else these institutions do,

their central effects

is

tion of the professional staff

Inmates and lower

one of

to sustain the self-concep-

employed

there.

involved in a vast supportive action an elaborate dramatized tribute that has the effect, if not the purpose, of affirming that a medical-like service is in progress here and that the psychiatric staff is providing it. Something about the weakness of this claim is suggested by the industry required to support it . Mental patients can find themselves in a special bind. To get out of the hospital, or to ease their life within it. They must show acceptance of the place accorded them, and the place accorded them is to support the occupational role of those who appear to force staff levels are

—

—

.

.

RADICAL THERAPIST

78

This self-alienating moral serwhich perhaps helps to account for some inmates becoming mentally confused, is achieved by invoking the great tradition of the

this

bargain.

vitude,

expert servicing relation, especially

its

medical

variety.

The mental hospital confronts hapless wayfarers, gives them conundrums to solve, and punishes them dreadfully this modern if they fail. Shall we not find an alternative to too? us among unwary the destroys sphinx before it

The

anti-psychiatry

ward

Dr. David Cooper in 1962 began to dehierarchize one ward within a large mental hospital near London. He wished to "allow a greater degree of freedom of movement out of the highly artificial staff and patient roles imposed on people by conventional psychiatry." He called his project an "experiment in anti-psychiatry." The staff abolished role-bound' behavior such as organizing "patients" into activity, supervising their domestic

work on the ward, and "treating" them. An "antirule" was set up that "patients" decide their own leave period, attendance at meetings, and getting out of bed. In response partially to external administrative pressure the ward staff behavior. role-bound restored their own David Cooper sees the result of his "experiment" to

change are found to be mental even very closely drawn indeed ultimeans forward step "a that suggests hospital." He mately a step out of the mental hospital into the com-

be that "the

limits of institutional

—

in a progressive

munity."

Kingsley Hall of a building in the East End is three of London. It was built about sixty years ago. It there live can people thirteen in height. About

Kingsley Hall

floors

is

the

name

79

A

comfortably, each with his own room. large ground"games room," a dining room, a meeting room, two kitchens, and three other rooms used by the occupants now as a meditation room, a chapel, and a darkroom comprise the "common rooms." The for photography roof is open and has a garden. floor hall, a

—

—

The

building has been used in the past as a

community

center for meetings of various kinds, and as a settlement house. It has also served as a place of worship. Mahatma

Gandhi stayed

at Kingsley Hall

when he

visited

London

in 1931.

The Philadelphia

Association, Ltd., leased the building

from the Kingsley Hall Board of Trustees in June 1965. The community which I describe here began then and has included over one hundred individuals. The PA also has affiliated itself with several other small communities similar in aim to Kingsley Hall. The people in each household make the rules which govern their lie together. These households comprise a major social experiment. Several

members

the year 1965-66.

of the

The

PA

lived at Kingsley Hall in

residents are free to ask

advice or help whenever they wish.

The

lectures in psychiatry, anti-psychiatry

PA

them

for

has sponsored

and phenomenology

Kingsley Hall, and has arranged seminars and meetings there with professional people in many fields. The community has been a link in a chain of counterculture centers. Experimental drama groups, social scienat

tists of the new left, classes from the Antiuniversity of London, leaders of the commune movement, and avantgarde poets, artists, musicians, dancers, and photographers have met at Kingsley Hall with the residents in the last three and a half years. The Free School of London met

there for the

first

time.

The founder-members of Kingsley Hall hoped to fulfill in the community their seed idea that lost souls may be cured by going mad among people who see madness as a chance to die and be reborn. Laing says in The Politics of Experience:

RADICAL THERAPIST

80

age in the history of humanity has perhaps so lost touch with this natural healing process, that implicates some of the people whom we it, label schizophrenic. No age has so devalued no age has imposed such prohibitions and deterrences against it, as our own. Instead of the mental hospital, a sort of reservicing factory

No

human breakdowns, we need a place where who have travelled further, and consequently, may be more lost than psy-

for

people

and other sane people, can find their way further into inner space and time, and back chiatrists

again. Instead of the degradation ceremonial of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognostication, we need, for those who are ready

for

it

who

(in psychiatric terminology often those about to go into a schizophrenic

are

breakdown), an initiation ceremonial, through which the person will be guided with full social encouragement and sanction into inner space and time. PsychiatricaUy, this would appear as ex-patients helping future patients to go mad.

When Freud (and

his

returned to his patients' earliest memories

own) he found traumas which he saw had

led

his) them (and him) to repress regions of their (and been had which energy and feelings revealed He being. memories buried and "bound" together with the forgotten infancy. and childhood in occurred of events which had

Freud urged

his patients to

remember

their pasts,

make

and

themselves

to recover their lost feelings, in order to men who whole again. He also said he knew of acts of as "unsurvived which history recorded had lived before all living human of minds the in memories conscious"

did not urge his beings and influenced their behavior. He their births, before long time, that patients to go back to to cure themselves. Human societies in diverse times and places have relied

man of "psychotherapy" which Western cure To chaos. to return the suppressed: has forgotten and back beyond goes man "primitive" and "archaic" himself

upon a method

"MENTAL ILLNESS" OLD AND NEW

81

the experience of his personal past, beyond the experiences of his ancestors, beyond history, beyond prehistory, beyond the time of this world to enter a mythical, eternal time that precedes all origins. He disintegrates, or is disintegrated, as a person who exists in historical, egoic time

and he undergoes psychic chaos which "he" experiences as contemporaneous with the amorphous being whose interior was ruptured by the cosmogony. His rebirth into existence repeats the creation of cosmos out of chaos. Several "returns" of this sort have occurred at Kingsley Hall. It is too early to know whether cures by this method are feasible in Western culture, even among an enclave of people who will permit them to occur. The "rebirth" of Mary Barnes may encourage those who wish to explore this further.

Mary Barnes at

is

forty-five years old.

She came to

live

Kingsley Hall three and a half years ago. Recently she

wrote an account for

me

of her experiences.

Here are some

excerpts.

From the age of seventeen years until the time of forty-two years when I came here my time was spent mainly in hospitals. One year was mental hospital as a patient. All the

in a

rest

was on the "staff side" of several hospitals. I was a Sister, later a Tutor. Kingsley Hall is where I have experienced real healing. Through the experience of a schizophrenic breakdown twelve years before I came here, I knew what I wanted: to go down, back to before I was born and to come up again. of the time

.

.

.

She felt she needed to return to the point where she had taken a wrong turn, and to come back again by another path. In the mental hospital I had got stuck in my madness. Mostly I was in the pads [padded cell] ... No one knew why least of all me.

—

RADICAL THERAPIST

82

She got out of the hospital and "somehow I kept out of hospitals as a patient." "Eventually," she came to R. D. Laing. He told her he was looking for a place where it

would be possible for her to live through the experiences she sought, but he did not know when he would find one. She chose to "hold on" until he did. Nineteen months passed before Kingsley Hall became available. She "held on" during that time. After moving into Kingsley Hall she began to go a long

way

back.

At first so had come

great for

was

my

fear I forgot

what

I

Quite suddenly I remembered, "I've come here to have a breakdown, to go back to before I was born and come up .

.

.

again."

For several weeks she continued to work at her job at which was an hour away. She worked during hospital a the day and "regressed" at Kingsley Hall in the evening. Then she wrote a letter of resignation to the hospital. Life soon

became

quite fantastic. Every night

Kingsley Hall I tore off my clothes, feeling I had to be naked. Lay on the floor with my shits and water, smeared the walls with feces. Was wild and noisy about the house or sitting in a heap on the kitchen floor. Half-aware that I was going mad, there was the terror that I might not know what I was doing away, outat

side of Kingsley Hall.

Her

The tempo was God, would

The

was accepted.

resignation at the hospital

I

others found

smeared feces

increasing.

Down, down, oh

never break. it

difficult to five

on her body and on the

Her room was next

to the kitchen

with her

when

sh(

walls of her rooi

and the odor

diffus

"Pig Parent."

It is

the incorporation of

all

the values

(telling her she which keep women subordinate Child when it etc.) and terrorizes the

outdo

man

musn t tries to

WOMEN AND MEN

185

This oppression can be easily illustrated by using we call "bragging." Children love to tell how fine and wonderful they are until their parents and other grown-ups teach them that it is bad to really like yourself. Children take their word for it and often grow up unable

be

fine.

a technique

to really love themselves.

Try

up in front of a group of friends and tell them your good points. You will often experience anxiety and begin to qualify what you say. The Parent says, "You should be humble," what it really means is, "Don't be too groovy or I'll zap you." The Pig Parent is always measuring the performance of productiveness of the Child. It is not accepting but demanding; it says things are never good enough. The internalized parental oppression (Po) can be devastating. If a woman has been terrorized by her father as a little girl, as many have been, yelled at and physically beaten, she may maintain this guttearing fear which often carries over to reactions to other about

to get all

men later on. I don't know if it is possible to undo all the knots that this type of parental tyranny can impose but here are a few techniques for fighting it. Become aware of the Pig Parent as a powerful element of your psyche. Be sensitized to

when

it

makes you

feel

bad or says negative

when to expect it to become active. It usually comes down heavy when the Child wants to be out doing what she really wants or when she has been feeling fine. Write down its favorite statements and become familiar with its language. It often uses words things to you.

Try

to anticipate

must, should, ought, better, best, bad, stupid, ugly, Work out good, sound Adult responses to the Pig Parent; this is vital when offing the oppressor within and replacing it with a humane and tolerant view of like:

crazy, or sick.

yourself.

Also it is very important for a woman to strengthen her Adult which is the aspect of the ego she has often had no permission to develop, since the Adult is crucial for making good decisions which are needed to attain a solid sense of identity as a rational, intelligent

Two

valuable

interrelated

human

being.

techniques

developed

by

RADICAL THERAPIST

186

protecSteiner that I'd like to discuss are permission and she things do to Child the given to tion. Permission is perwants to do but which the Po won't permit. Following

provide mission the leader and the other group members leader The support. and strokes protection in the form of against goes that permission giving when potent must be strong and the original Parental injunctions. She must be by being permission sure in what she says and back up her with her support give to group the together with

available permission and presence, over the telephone, etc. In giving whereas protection she uses her own Parental ego state intergroup the of most in she ordinarily uses her Adult actions.

tne There are permission exercises that can be used m also but bragging, group that not only free the Child, as in and provide develop a sense of trust among the members .

a setting to open

up the

possibilities of physical stroking

seems crucial to me that women be able other. to give and receive strokes from each have two women sit to is used One exercise that can be other in the eye, exeach look and other closely, face each other over carechange names and smiles. Then look each the other s about likes fully and pick something each one

between women.

It

a compliappearance. Now each woman gives the other here). The necessary is honesty (absolute ment or stroke strokes are given group observes closely, making sure that technique can This manner. openly and received in like of actual receiving and giving eventually involve the physical strokes. mvolve bragging, In essence, permission exercises can (physical as strokes for asking giving and taking strokes, in a strong asmoving assertive, being well as verbal), whatever will help free sertive way, shouting, laughing, or

women.

.^

_

contact with men In addition to all women's groups, should have Women solving. problem for vital can also be men and with oppression an option of working out their from the not and equal least at against them as to

come up

usual one-down position.

Marx

said:

"The

relationship of

WOMEN AND MEN man

to

woman

being to

human

is

187

the most natural relationship of

being.

From

this relationship

human

man's whole

development can be assessed." This relationship can be worked on in groups of six women and six men who meet together once a week and separately once a week with the purpose to overcome sex roles and combat male chauvinism. It is most important that various alternatives be made available. Groups can be geared for different levels of consciousness and life styles and should be made viable for all women, not just a small percentage. It appears that some women see' any "therapy" as an level of

attempt at individual solutions and pacification as establishment psychiatry has been. Because this paper may be seen as proposing individual solutions for a class problem I'd like to add a comment to explain my position on this issue.

The women's groups other their

women

that I

am

do not, in energies away from political to lead

leading and teaching experience, co-opt

my

activities

but rather, by

bringing changes into their lives, free their energies and help them carry on their struggle in a more vital way. There are no individual solutions to women's oppression but I cannot accept that women must suffer (in turn with a Calvinist, "Lefter Than Thou" Pig Parent) while waiting for the revolution to come.

As I said above, liberation cannot be achieved by awareness alone or by merely belaboring the evils of oppression in an endless "Ain't it awful" pastime. Women need contact (group strokes and support) in order to bring their praxis in line with their awareness. In closing, I'd like to stress a few things I think are leader should necessary in running women's groups. strive to be as positive as possible, to dilute competition

A

in group, enliven a sense of sisterly tolerance in

women,

avoid perfectionist demands, and energize a strong sense of cooperation and group love.

Aggression in

Women

Shirley Bernard

Shirley Bernard

is

active in the

West

Coast women's struggle.

According to Reisman and others, women's "virulent on any 'rebel from the fold' is a good index of the

attack

uneasiness

may be

felt in their traditional

true.

But the dynamic

role." This statement

also finds

its

impetus from

sources other than uneasiness. The phenomenon was observed also during centuries when women seemed to be at ease in their role. In addition the phenomenon can be

observed not only in women, but in lower caste groups. It is manifested in our society by blacks, in colonized societies by "natives," and in most societies by women. In sum, it is manifested by groups that have been forced or conditioned to divert their hostility and aggression from the oppressor to their own oppressed group. Franz Fanon has noted that "the colonized man first manifests his aggressiveness against his own people. This is the period when the niggers first beat each other up." Fanon's statement assumes that colonized people have aggressive impulses that must be released, and that these impulses can be released with safety only against their own lower caste. But in our culture the assumption is made that

188

WOMEN AND MEN

189

are relatively passive, that they have few or no such impulses and therefore the phenomenon goes unrecognized for what it is—diverted aggression. It is also presumed that women constitute not a lower caste, but a privileged caste, thereby confusing even further the recognition of what may be the basic motives for women's

women

actions.

Yet an analysis of the colonized people presents clear analogies to the condition of

women. Colonized peoples

are trained to think of themselves as inhabiting a world made up of two different species: the settlers and the natives.

values

The

settlers

ascribe to themselves

and inventions:

courage,

leadership,

all

positive

creativity,

"higher" religions, logic, inventions, art, technology, etc. To the native is ascribed passivity, emotionality, witchcraft, intuition, depravity, stupidity, timorousness, cunning, etc. Even so are the two species of our world divided. In our society the analogue is male and female. According to the Sherriffs' study, and others, men are rated higher than women on most positive traits and values. Men are rated higher not only by men, but also by women. This concurrence in the belief by both groups in their respective superiority or inferiority is observed by Fanon as the ultimate end of colonization. "In the colonial context the settler only ends his work of breaking in the native when the latter admits loudly and intelligibly the supremacy of the white man's values." But belief in the innate inferiority of the oppressed must be interiorized if the oppressor is to maintain his security and minimize the constant fear of attack and reprisal. Therefore such belief must be fostered through both formal and informal education, "which lightens the task of policing considerably." In the case of woman, she interiorizes the male-oriented, male-aggrandizing culture to the detriment of her own self-esteem. To a considerable extent Western culture has been predicated upon the "higher" religions. These religions denigrate women and serve to support the slavery and self-abnegation demanded of all colonized people. To woman is attributed original sin and

190

RADICAL THERAPIST

the downfall of mankind.

Woman

is

trained to worship

male Gods and gods. Whether through the influence of psychiatrists, sociologists, or religions, she

is

given a belief

(anatomy as destiny, or God's will as fate) removes all blame from the oppressor and allocates

in fatality

that it

to

herself.

But how, finally, does the personality become so damaged as to strike out against the self as reflected in the homogeneous group rather than against the true oppressor? Fanon suggests that the colonized person has little choice. The brutal retaliation imposed upon the native for any display of aggression against the settler leaves the colonized person with only one acceptable object upon whom to vent frustration: other natives. In this way he polices his own group and supports the status quo. Analogous to this kind of brutal training is the rigid restrictions placed upon aggressive behavior by female children of our own society. The only acceptable female aggression is prosocial aggression: aggressive support of the social

—

—

standards. In a study done at Stanford University it was discovered that preschool female aggression was severely punished by mothers; whereas preschool male aggression was treated somewhat permissively. It was discovered during the follow-up study (at twelve years of age) that females manifested much higher levels of aggression anxiety and prosocial aggression than did males. "In summary, the influence of these two child-rearing variables may be hypothesized to have been as follows: high punishment of aggression reduced antisocial aggression but increased aggression anxiety and prosocial aggression, and high permissiveness increased antisocial aggression but reduced the other." Corroboration was found with those girls whose aggressions had been treated permissively; they rated lower on prosocial aggression and higher on anti-

Those boys who were successfully inby severe punishment manifested high aggression anxiety (as did most girls) but remained lower on the

social aggression.

hibited

prosocial aggression scale. This difference suggests that prosocial aggression is encouraged in females as an ac-

WOMEN AND MEN

191

ceptable form of feminine behavior. policing

the

subordinate group.

It has the value of Therefore, in the dif-

and girls may be discerned the factors that make women wish to punish transgressions, to vent their aggressive feelings by maintaining and upholding rules, standards, and limitations as they have been set by the culture. Early training inhibits female hostility and the normal, spontaneous expression ferentiated child rearing of boys

of that hostility, fold."

and

directs

it

toward the "rebel from the

Offing Piggery in

Women's Groups Dot Vance

Dot Vance

is with the Radical Psychiatry Center in Berkeley.

Hogie Wyckoff's emphasis on positive expectations from is effective in avoiding distrust, anxiety, and thus

women

piggishness in groups. Alice said,

"Who am

I

then? Tell

me

and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up." The contact which awaits the woman who comes up comes up to the promise of being a sister will have to be sustained, tolerant, and non-perfectionist. In order that women may not feel threatened for them to have trust, and thus permission to identify and rid themselves of their oppression they must know that they are liked for themselves, and not for what they produce, how that

first,

—

—

—

—

fast they fulfill their contracts,

etc.

Women

(experts at

adjusting for acceptance) will readily exhibit their adapted Child not believing that they will really be part of a

—

whole for themselves, or natural Child. Their contracts will be censored one out front the real one secretly held and futilely worked on. If there is

—

piggishness going on in the group,

192

why

—

the hell should a

WOMEN AND MEN

193

woman

be out front with her soul only to have it trashed once more? She may continue coming to group for plastic fuzzies for they are better than none but, she may say once more to herself, "I'm still not with it." Pride and loyalty are built like Simon Rodia's Watts Tower or Babel in reverse slowly and lovingly with bits of broken bottles and glittering stones. Truth can come out of being builders being people accepting. Piggery, on the other hand, is people trashing and can be seen in everyone. It is descriptive of the oppressive Parent ego state and is not a noun. When we catch it in ourselves or it shows itself in role playing, it is easily seen and can be laughed at in its blatancy.

—

—

— —

—

—

Piggishness is characteristic of those who chop away at the tower and babelize it because it has a blemish.

Piggishness

is

not an essence.

We

can be more tolerant

we can think: "Whoops! I pigged!" rather than "Oh wow! Am I a pig!" I can be brilliant today and of ourselves

if

stupid tomorrow.

Piggish actions can be rooted out, ridiculed, or trashed. who trashed things, not people, is Fr. Daniel Ber-

A man

rigan, Jesuit priest

and poet who burned draft records

Catonsville, Maryland, in 1)

to

Trashed things

whom

smash the

things things.

—When you

are

in

1968. Daniel Berrigan: deal with a government

more important than people, you

He poured

blood on and burned draft

records while treating the clerk and those he removed records from with courtesy and humanness

— —

pact was an act of anger against the system fellow

thus the im-

—not

things

men themselves.

—

2) Spoke out with anger, strength, and dignity While he was underground he was writing his poetic prose, plays, and emerging to address surprised congregations in church.

—

His was a solid, together group, who 3) Had contact have remained that way in spite of prison, threats, and punishment.

RADICAL THERAPIST

194

aware of the oppression of existentially. and violence, historically submit to the oppression of 5) Resisted—Rather than Self-trashing didn t make piggism, he went underground. the defendants m the noted, he senfe. Two years ago, 4)

Had awareness—Was

concept of civd disCatonsville trial shared the classic punishment for dlegal acte but obedience, which accepts sequence certainly did not.de er the crime-trial-punishment No Sermon on the Mount Vietnam. in Leased violence he He wants o talk -blessed are the weak Christian is about John in the writing with the Weathermen. In Review of Books he writes, York October 22, 1970, New hard, his breathed close and threatened

"But when power

than Spanish o things bone. They struck flint; and asks, "in such he activists," some awakened fire." "Do little more than setftoes as these, see themselves as bodies and walk their wire d^troying machines; and so

advenes came up against something harder nature flint,

about

in the

." .

.

Women

in groups should

be encouraged to

wherever they find

resist the

Many come

it.

to

zap o^pigSsm together politically and find Berkeley thinking we have it MtajL and dfsiflusioned people have preceded and up come to oppressed for the It becomes impossible right Ae outpig and other each we turn against by piggish perfecA game called "What If" is played you are doing what if "What tionisfsTnd people trashers. lead to could It conclusion? was carried to its logical made be must totalitarian thinking and r

SSaSn

ogeS

,

7ascism™This is awarTthaf 1) it

Zg oZ nnH

to

is

be carried to

illogical to believe that its

which

society, such as a group makes contracts, the fear is unreal.

AnSer

game,

"How Dare You,"

is

tower-coming up

to

m

is

an

tolerant, flexible,

goes like this and

groups: dir^tefat feaders of contractual techniques) speak with assurance (as to lieve you know everything!"

Building a

anything

logical conclusion and 2)

"How if

is

dare you

you dont be-

sohdanty-is not a

WOMEN AND MEN

195 program for women. It consists of helping Alice become aware of her beauty and strength, providing sustained protection and contact, permission to speak or pacification

act in anger against oppressive forces, and encouragement to expose piggishness for what it is in nations, communes

or primary groups.

'

IV»

Community and

Society

Mental Health: Theory and Practice Stealing

Richard Kunnes, M.D.

In

New York

City in the

first

forty-nine days of 1970,

34 teenagers, including twelve-year-olds, and 104 adults died of heroin usage. This is an average of almost three deaths per day. This mortality rate shows no sign of declining, but is rather increasing. Eleven-year-olds have been arrested as drug pushers. The statistics and visibility of the heroin drug problem have increased astronomically. A recent unpublished study by the New York City Board of Education showed that there was, within a one-year

500 to 700 percent increase in the number of known and suspected teenage heroin addicts. The rapidly

period, a

rising death rate of addicts in general,

and teenagers

in par-

emphasizes community-wide institutional failures not just by the health system, but to meet peoples' needs

ticular,

by the

—

entire

human

services

network and, indeed, by the

political system.

All the deaths have occurred in or near the city's ghetto one block away from the

areas. St. Luke's Hospital is

Harlem

ghetto. Thougji nominally a private hospital,

percent of

its

operating

90

money comes from governmental, 199

200 i.e.,

RADICAL THERAPIST public agencies. In spite of years of pleading from and

negotiations with the surrounding

Harlem community, and

in spite of St. Luke's being a publicly

funded hospital,

it

has remained publicly unaccountable to the community's need for addiction services. It maintained no addiction program but did have a nominal division of community psychiatry. This division, funded totally by public money, has satellite offices and staff. "Liberated" documents from the division reveal that the division has contracted out its services to the city police department to ". enable them to function better ..." Other documents revealed that the division was about to engage in similar activities with the Department of the Army. Rather than being engaged in community service programs, the division was engaged in counter-insurgency programs the ultimate use of psychiatry as a tool of repression and clearly of no benefit to the community. The police certainly did not need psy.

.

— —

and arrest heroin pushers operaton the doorsteps of the hospital. It is

chiatric training to locate ing, often literally,

more than ironic that the part of the hospital which should be most responsive to community needs, i.e., the division of

community

psychiatry,

was the part

repressive toward them. This as uniquely culpable:

is

of the hospital

not to single out

the situation

is

St.

most

Luke's

worse elsewhere.

Most hospitals don't even pretend to have a division community psychiatry good, bad, or otherwise.

A

of

—

disparate array of factors were involved in a rapidly

developing

crisis situation:

Housing shortages were exacerbated by land grabs by the hospitals and medical centers surrounding the Harlem area. This deprives the poor of an already short supply of apartments and increases the rent for those which remain. This in turn makes the poor poorer and increases the likelihood of the 1)

for institutional expansion

correlates of poverty, e.g., heroin addiction.

2) Increasingly, medical centers depend on grants for

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

201

the implementation of innovative services. tion services bring in very

little

of this

Drug addic-

money.

;

'

3) Addiction services also have minimal use for any form of technology and/or equipment, so that hospital suppliers and contractors can in no way relate to and profit from addiction services.

4) Addiction services are of no profitable relevance to insurance companies, as virtually only the poor are addicted to heroin and thus do not have and cannot afford insurance premiums. 5) Drug companies also have nothing to gain from implementation of addiction services, as detoxification costs less than a dollar per person and therefore offers little area for profit. Even methadone maintenance is

—

These corporations hospital supand contractors, equipment manufacturers, drug and insurance companies, and other members of the medicalindustrial complex play. an increasing role in determining our health institution priorities, and addiction services is not one of them. available quite cheaply.

pliers

—

6)

The

hospital

whelming and

costly

staff to seriously

on the other hand requires an overamount of bed space and professional

deal with the heroin problem.

7) Doctors are, in general, simply not trained to handle addiction services. Medical students aren't trained in addiction programs in large part because it has nothing to do with their future intended practices in the white uppermiddle-class suburbs. Given the racial characteristics of a

heroin addiction clientele and the racist nature of medical training, quality doctor-patient relationships

would be

at

a premium. 8) Overwhelmingly the problem seems to be a socioeconomic or politico-economic one and not a physiological one at least in this country where serious heroin addiction is confined almost exclusively to ghetto areas. But

—

RADICAL THERAPIST

202

pamedical education emphasizes organic physiologic enthology and not politico-economic pathology, thereby there Thus, interest. suring limited medical and professional amounts of research money available and even are limited

less

personnel to carry out the research.

avoid arresting 9) The local police either completely on the pushers and suppliers or are complicit with and in the heroin of payroll of the Mafia, the major source medical-industrial the as well ghetto. Thus the police, as of complex, have little or no stake in the implementation addiction services or addiction removal.

The situation has reached such crisis proportions that vigilante mothers in some ghetto communities have formed In the sight. on suppliers committees to shoot major heroin average, the on week, per supplier one least South Bronx at members has been gunned down by enraged community defending the lives of their children. January 13, 1970, about fifty black, brown, and

literally

On

physicians white members of the community, as well as and other health workers from the Medical Liberation We Front (myself included), invaded St. Luke's Hospital. comof division the of offices the all seized and occupied and munity psychiatry, set up walk-in heroin detoxification a as hospital, the units, and demanded that rehabilitation

of its publicly funded health institution, turn over 120 sercommunity-relevant for community the 800 beds to until this up hospital The programs. addiction vices, i.e., patients were time had selective admission policies, where their admitted on the basis of their ability to pay and/or Therefore, usefulness in teaching and research projects. to select, any the hospital turned away, i.e., chose not addiction with years, people, in the last ten to fifteen

problems.

Once we were

able to establish and maintain security

Medical Liberation Front people heroin quickly taught community people how to detoxify Thorazine. Methadone was not used because

in our occupied areas,

addicts with

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

203

the community felt that methadone would simply replace one addictive drug for another, as has happened on occasion. This teaching effort rapidly demystified the role of the physician, as well as demonopolized his skills by transferring them directly to the community. From that point

on the only time doctors or nurses were needed was when severe vomiting occurred, in which case injectable medicine was used. In the 3V2 days we held the building, a doctor or nurse was only needed once for that. Rehabilitation and education programs were carried on by a group called ABLE (Academy for Black and Latin Education). ABLE is a "street academy," i.e., a school run by and for ghetto people in a storefront operation. Fortunately, we had wide press and television coverage, which served two purposes: 1) It let addicts know that there was a program for them in their own community.

The hundreds

of addicts

who appeared

in our area of the

and rehabilitation confirmed our worst fears about the depth and breadth of the problem. It also confirmed that we were performing a needed, indeed, desperately needed community service. 2) The other purpose was to put the pressure of public opinion against the hospital administration, which in itself served two purposes: one, the hospital was made extremely reluctant to call the police to have us removed and arrested. This not only saved us from jail, but allowed the occupation and thus the program to carry on longer, thereby getting for us additional press and television coverage, putting more pressure on the hospital and developing a sense of health consciousness in the community. The St. recognition that an institution in their community Luke's was failing to provide needed and relevant serhospital for detoxification

—

—

vices because of

its

different priorities than theirs

developed

a considerable degree of politicalization in the community.

The second purpose was

that as the

community became

galvanized as a result of media coverage, the hospital was increasingly pressured to services.

meet

its

demand

for addiction

204

RADICAL THERAPIST

While the hospital was not pressured or threatened by the presence of those who had seized part of it, they were pressured by what the occupiers represented an enraged, exploited, and now explosive community literally up in arms, getting itself together, forming viable coalitions to take on and over negligent and repressive directly

—

institutions. Plainclothes police did

manage

to infiltrate the

occupied area. However, in view of the hospital's geographic and strategic susceptibility (located one block

from Harlem), the power relationships between the hospital and the community and those who represented it in the occupation were more than equalized, thus leading to "rational and reasonable" and relatively prompt negotiations.

The hospital's acceptance of some of the community's demands was abetted by the likelihood of some federal

money to help finance a forty-bed treatment program. The final settlement was an arrangement for forty beds for addiction services, as well as a satellite addiction service building in another part of the community.

What

is

clear

produced no

is

and pleading than the occasional admission into the existing hospital research and i.e., when the patient could be used was only when the community was

that years of negotiations

results, other

of a patient who fit teaching priorities

—

and not served.

It

it was rewarded with needed serwhich they could rightfully expect and demand from a publicly funded but privately serving and

aggressively assertive that

vices, services

unaccountable community

institution.

The

forty-bed vic-

tory thus rewards appropriate assertiveness and therefore

must be considered psychotherapeutic, as well as politically and medically viable. If this study can be generalized, one can't depend upon the "goodwill and reasonableness" of public institutions to meet the needs of the people, no matter how clearly defined and visible those needs are. Interestingly enough, the hospital in

community

its final

offer to the

do a community-wide survey of the community's addiction problem. To the community, who offered to

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

205

and understood the depth of the problem, such a survey was superfluous at best and at worst inflated the cost of health care (if only minimally) by providing a rationalization for a funding grant to the hospital for unnecessary or irrelevant research. It hardly mattered to the community whether 10.3 percent of its members were addicted or 13.8 percent. To the community and any outside observer the problems were overwhelming and whatever solutions were offered would in all likelihood be grossly inadequate, in spite of any survey. Well, what about some long-term solutions? To Herbert L. Packer, Professor of Law at Stanford University, it's clear that criminal sanctions applying severe criminal punishments have hit primarily users and not traffickers. Also an immensely profitable heroin market has developed because of criminal sanctions "... contributing significantly to the growth and prosperity of organized criminal groups. Users have committed large numbers of burdaily experienced

." thefts and murders to get money for drugs. The Foundation of New York City has compiled staVERA tistics showing that two-thirds of all crime committed in New York City is drug-related. There are at least 100,000 heroin addicts in New York City alone on a heroin habit costing an average of forty dollars per day. To make forty dollars a day an addict must steal two hundred dollars worth of goods a day, 365 days a year. This computes out to well over $7 billion per year, not to mention the cost of police enforcement and insurance premiums: $7 to $8

glaries

.

.

is more than many countries' national money can be put to more appropriate

billion dollars a year

budgets. Surely this use.

Mr. Packer

number searches,

come

also

notes that "a disturbingly large

of undesirable police practices

—

unconstitutional

entrapment, electronic surveillance

habitual" in drug cases but

—have

no longer confined

beto

drug cases. These laws broken by the police are increasingly extended against political dissidents. Professor Packer further notes that "a large and well-entrenched enforce-

ment bureaucracy has developed a vested

interest in the

— 206

RADICAL THERAPIST

status quo and has effectively thwarted all but the most marginal reforms." The New York Times reports that ". some police in the city have made arrangements with traffickers whom the police have uncovered to let the pushers continue, with the police then taking a share .

.

of the profits."

In what was probably the most puritanical disaster in the U.S. Justice Department lumped marijuana and heroin together as "dangerous drugs." In an attempt to cut off the supply of marijuana, the Justice Department virtually closed down the Mexican border, dried up the marijuana supply while ". traffickers began offering history,

.

.

cut-price heroin instead of marijuana to,

among

others,

city schoolchildren."

Thus up

it is

clear that criminal sanctions, at least as used

now, only exacerbate the

situation. In view of one of the directions for new solutions must be toward legalization of heroin, dispensed probably by prescription. This would essentially eliminate the criminal aspects of until

this,

heroin addiction. to

it,

It

would eliminate the expenses

related

the unconstitutional enforcement procedures,

and

two-thirds of the city's crime, not to mention the three deaths a day attributable to addiction, as well as the in-

creasing morbidity rates.

At a minimum, a minuscule reE. Stolfi is that we immunize all

form suggested by Dr.

J.

addicts against tetanus

and

with no

hepatitis

(immune

be to allow the existing public health addicts

globulin)

questions asked. Another simple reform would

on the demand of the

clinics to

withdraw be done

addicts. This could

virtually as an outpatient procedure over a forty-eight-hour time span. Readily accessible withdrawal climes, free from

the risk of criminal charges, would encourage early and more frequent withdrawals. This would lower the cost of the drug habit for the vast majority of addicts, as well as

lower the crime rate associated with it. That neither of done is a very serious mark

these mild reforms have been

against the medical profession, not to mention the political structure under

which

it

flourishes.

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

207

and controlled dispensing of heroin is number of countries and is not without precedent in this country. However, the American Medical Association succeeded in 1924 in closing down such legal dispensing clinics. Legalization does not produce an increasing physiologic tolerance and increasing dosages. One of the major reasons for the continuing and rapid increase in the number of addicts is the need for the criminal market to constantly expand. Addicts themselves attempt to addict other nonaddicts to have an additional Legalization

currently being done in a

resource to

sell

heroin to in order to support their

own

Such would not be the case if heroin were legalized. Elimination of the black market and criminality would remove the need to expand existing markets and to create habit.

new

addicts.

Another possible area where we might find some answers is in community /consumer control of all health services, especially those which are publicly funded, which are about 90 percent of the health facilities in the city. Health policy decision making would be made on a decentralized basis by locally elected community health boards made up of the consumers and workers from that particular community. They would set overall health policy for their community. All money would be funneled through the council and dispensed as they saw fit. Presumably, those communities with drug problems would fund programs dealing with those problems, rather than, say, funding programs in heart transplantation. Currently in the city,

community control of health facilities is being by such groups as the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, assisted by the Medical Liberation Front. Already, over a hundred community people have been arrested in seizures of health facilities and disruptions of health the fight for led

agency meetings. More crisis

in

general,

is

sure to follow as the city's health

and addiction problem

in

particular,

worsens. Well, what of this? It

is

is

the role of the white professional in

all

true that in the short run the doctor might

208

RADICAL THERAPIST

be able to see and treat more patients if he does but see and treat them. In the long run, however, very little and by his practice supports both the health and political system, which are responsible in large part the cause of the very

ills

nothing he does existing

for

and

the physician

is

or prevent. Health care is never delivered in a political vacuum. It's either part of the solution or part of the problem. The gaining of an additional forty beds for addiction services might save more lives and alleviate more disease than what a single physician might do in his entire professional lifetime, as simply a doctor in an office or clinic. While the physician, himself, cannot seize or occupy a hospital, he can render a service to the community in a radical context: the physician-patient or physician-community relationship must always be that of equals, open and consultative, where option and alternatives are clearly trying to treat, cure,

delineated, where health technology and the profession are demonopolized, demystified, and deprofessionalized. Professionalization, mystification, and monopolization of skills through licensing and accrediting procedures are all mechanisms of the existing health and political system to limit services and to channelize the medical marketplace. Thus

any action which exposes this situation is antithetical to the existing health and political system. What information and services I could and did offer this community were more along the lines of problem delineation (aside from the transfer of skills for withdrawal). The problem was delineated as follows: 1.

The

addiction problem

that simply educating the

hospital will produce 2.

The

no

is

so massive and pervasive the

community and pleading with results.

hospital in their

community was a

publicly

funded hospital and as such must serve and not ignore or exploit the

community

public responsibilities first.

—

that the hospital

first

and not

its

must meet

institutional

its

needs

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY 3. it

The

209

would not serve the community, because the hospital's advantage to do so, unless forced

hospital

wasn't to

to.

From obvious.

the above, the conclusion to use force

became

Community Mental Health Pacification

as a

Program Jim Statman

Jim Statman is in the department at Catholic Washington, D.C.

psychology University,

no necessity for working social scienmeaning of their work to be shaped by the "accidents" of its setting, or its use to be determined by the purposes of other men. It is quite within their powers to discuss its meaning and. decide upon There

tists

its

is

to allow the political

uses as a matter of their

own

—C.

policy.

Wright Mills

To be professionally concerned with problems of social and mental health in America is to take a political stance. No longer can we remain professionally detached from the political and social upheavals which surround us. The rush of events of the last decade have made this quite clear. No longer can we self-righteously proclaim an "end of ideology," assert that ideology has no place in the helping professions or maintain the myth of a value-free social and behavioral science. For within this declaration of

210

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

211

lies, we may suspect, a less-than-critical acceptance of prevailing social and political values. In a society in which health, education, and welfare are largely matters

neutrality

of government policy,

and low-priority matters at that, becomes especially important for those concerned with the planning, administration, and execution of such services to critically examine their role. The omnibus community mental health programs established in the urban ghettos serve real political and social functions both in these neighborhoods and in the society as a whole. In this paper we will attempt to examine some of these functions so that we may, as Mills suggests, come to understand and control the political meaning of our work. It has long been recognized that individual mental health is related to the quality of the social and economic milieu in which the person exists (e.g., Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958; Srole et al., 1962; Langner and Michael, 1963; Peck, Kaplan, and Roman, 1966). The problems of individual survival posed by life in the urban ghetto, as well as the tensions generated by intergroup social conflict and rapid social change, surely must take their toll (Klein and Statman, 1969). Thus the comprehensive community mental health approach aims not simply at bringing services closer to the person, or at coordinating and oiling it

the bureaucratic wheels of existing health services, but also at confronting oppressive institutions within the commu-

The approach then, is to provide community as well group and individual therapy; to include what have been termed "social action" as well as "mental health" aspects (Peck et al., 1966). Peck, Kaplan, and Roman (1966), for example, were among the first to decry the "failure to recognize the potential mental health implications of social action programs or conversely the need to build certain social action components into community mental health programs." While we would agree with this concern, we would add that with the birth of comprehensive community mental health programs, such as the Albert Einstein-Lincoln Hospital project in New York, the time nity.

as

212 has

RADICAL THERAPIST

come

to begin to also evaluate the social action impli-

community mental health. Such an evaluation obviously cannot be drawn in a vacuum. Indeed, the most general defining characteristic of such programs is that they self-consciously and purcations of

posively exist, functionally as well as geographically, within a community. Thus, it is only within the context of the

community, a community in history, an ongoing community in process, and more likely than not, a community undergoing rapid social change, that they can be judged. Any evaluation of community mental health programs then, must begin by looking at the community itself. While there are obviously many intercommunity variations, we would suggest that it is not unreasonable to characterize the urban ghetto today as in a state of active transformation and rebellion. The movement of black and other minority peoples for liberation has been the most explosive and far-reaching event of recent times. Every ghetto neighborhood has been affected; every block, housing project, and high school has been reached, every person has been changed. Within every urban ghetto indigenous, militant social action has been planned and often executed, changing the social and economic reality of the ghetto as well as the psychological reality of the ghetto resident.

White society has responded to the black liberation the carrot and the stick. Blacks and other minority people in America have always known the face of white oppression, and the police still patrol the ghetto like members of an army of occupation. Yet along with repression and "backlash," we have also seen "wars on poverty" and "great societies." Indeed, it has become something of a cliche to note that ghetto uprisings, though first met with armed might, are later buried under a deluge

movement with both

of benevolent social welfare programs.

The comprehensive community mental health approach As the black movement has escalated in militancy, so too have both faces of the white power structure. (Only recently, as the black movement pushes still further, has the carrot been withis

clearly a part of this white response.

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

213

drawn, leaving only the stick.) Federally sponsored community mental health programs are one manifestation of this escalation. Such programs are created in the heart of the ghetto. They influence all the service agencies which affect the community. They seek out neighborhood leaders, open storefronts and hire community people. Their presence is quickly noted; they cannot be ignored. The oppression and exploitation of colonial people, whether in Asia, Africa, and Latin America or in the black and brown ghettos of the United States, has, under varying social and historical conditions, operated at many levels and taken a variety of forms. Most obvious of course is that oppression enforced through the club, the dog, and the gun by the occupying police or army. Here the message is clear; one must obey or be destroyed by the sheer brutal might of the oppressor. However, the compliance exacted by the use of massive force represents only one, and not necessarily the most effective, means of inducing obedience. Indeed, there

is

much

in the literature of social

psychology (cognitive dissonance theory, for example) as well as in the history of oppressed peoples to suggest that it is often the employment of only that minimal force required to ensure compliance which proves to be most effective. This may be especially true if such force is presented in a form which is not readily perceived as coercive or which in fact is seen as helpful in intent by both the agents of oppression and the oppressed. The mystification of experience which accompanies the acceptance of such "kindnesses" creates a form of oppression far more destructive than that of the armed occupier. Thus, in the urban ghetto of America today, it is the Social Worker, the Psychologist, and the Educator who play the key oppressive role who have become the "soft police." Our paper will focus upon such repressive functions, inherent in the community mental health movement. Regardless of the altruistic intent of the staff, federally funded community mental health programs aimed at the ghetto serve to pacify the neighborhood to mystify and mollify justifiable outrage and thereby prevent action for meaning-

—

—

RADICAL THERAPIST

214 ful

analysis suggests that by diverting neighconcern toward problems of ''mental health" and

change.

borhood away from

Our

confront the basic oppressive institiK programs function to maintam rather than to advance the interests of the

efforts to

tions in our society, such

the status

quo

oppressed community. Our analysis will focus upon a brief consideration of ghettos need three interrelated questions: (1) Do urban approach clinical professional "mental health" or does the serve to divert

community resources from more meaning-

neighborhood (2) Does the employment of "paraprofesother in or leaders as mental health aides alienating co-optation, of form a as serve sional" job slots weakening these leaders from their community and thereby to believe the neighborhood power base? (3) Is it naive ful efforts?

are free to that federally funded social action programs society? our in institutions oppressive basic the confront Such Let us first consider the question of social action. grass-roots of terms in programs are usually envisioned

withorganizing aimed at modifying oppressive institutions community. Yet the changes in commumty social concerted and economic conditions engendered by such of process the within For value. sole actions are not their wincourse, organizing, of rising up in struggle and of

in the

m

rekindling of hope ning, lies a potent form of therapy— a the weight suffering long those and of personal efficacy in of oppression. Yet social action obviously

means more than developing

conducting a neighborhood pep rally. In those institutions which oppress the change attempting to yield community one soon discovers that they do not mora of force the or to the application of mild pressures in fact interindignation, and that such institutions are the community. related in a complex web which imprisons

civic pride or

the of the last decade, as well as of if it is to action, social clear: quite labor movement, is at first directed succeed, means militancy and whether it is

The experience

such as slum housing, or whether sanitation, housmunicipal institutions such as the school, at private institutions,

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

215

ing, or welfare systems are attacked, the issue

evitably find the

community and the

ruling

power

must

in-

structure

at odds. Why should we doubt this? Obviously the oppression of the ghetto is more than an accident of history, a bad habit, or a product of malign neglect. Such oppression exists as an integral part of our political and economic system, and will be defended by those ruling elements in the system which profit from this form. Thus, only militant

organizing and action can lead to liberation. Can we really expect that social action projects which owe their continued existence to governmental support are free to challenge governmental and corporate institutions which oppress the ghetto? How long would local power structures permit their influence to be threatened by a

government-sponsored militant opposition? Thus, despite the honest intent of the staff, such programs have built into their structure a brake upon their effectiveness. For as social action increases in militancy, pressures will arise within the organization to gb slow, to compromise, and to tone down the program in order to save it. Well-meaning

men

will gradually face a conflict between their program, which they have created, nurtured, fought, and worked hard for, their jobs, and the pressure for that degree

of militancy required for success. To expect that such social action programs will opt for militancy is like expecting an Army-sponsored college peace group to storm the

Pentagon. Our concern, however, is not due simply to these programs' built-in lack of efficacy. Rather, their pacificatory function lies in their ability to involve militant and potentially militant individuals and groups in their futile programs. Such involvement leads to a situation in which a federally funded agency is able to locate and to some degree give direction to and control ghetto opposition As the community mental health social action projects will undoubtedly be better funded than grass-roots social action groups, there will be pressure on indigenous organizations to cooperate with these projects; here leaflets can be typed and prmted or sound equipment borrowed. Increasingly,

"

216

RADICAL THERAPIST

come to depend on and have a stake in Even if militant neighborhood organizations ignore or oppose the community mental health projects,

local groups will

the program.

the conflict between groups can only serve to split and confuse the community as well as to wastefully engage the energies of the militant group. The social action aspect of community mental health programs serves as a good example of co-optation. As William Gamson (1969) has noted, co-optation is an important though subtle form of social control. This

mechanism, which "involves yielding access to the most difficult and threatening potential partisans" (Gamson, 1969), attempts to defuse potentially explosive opponents by incorporating them into the structure of the organization, of the system, which they oppose and inducing them to identify with and subject themselves to, the rewards and punishments which the organization bestows. Perhaps the clearest example of the co-optive function of community mental health programs can be seen in their emphasis upon the co-optation of neighborhood leaders through the creation of what has been condescendingly termed the "paraprof essional.

The employment of indigenous personnel in social action and mental health service programs functions not simply to teach and train, but also to alienate these leaders and potential leaders from their community, to turn their energies away from militant social action for the community and toward personal success. Let me cite a rather striking example of such co-optation. During the 1969 Orthopsychiatric Convention in New York, a community control dispute erupted at the Lincoln Hospital community mental health program. As the convention opened, several staff members were arrested in a sit-in at Lincoln Hospital and others were suspended. This dispute spilled over into, and soon became a volatile issue at the convention. At the invitation of the dissidents and with the cooperation of the hospital administration, almost thirty convention participants were given a tour of the Lincoln Hospital project and encouraged to discuss the controversy

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

217

with both clients and staff. On this tour, several of us met a young black neighborhood worker, a militant who had spent time in the South as a civil rights worker, and

who

surrounded by posters of and other revolutionary leaders, seemingly L oblivious to the conflict boiling all around him. Several of us expressed our surprise at finding him so curiously uninvolved in the dispute. His somewhat annoyed explanation was quite simple. As part of his training program, this young man had been given the opportunity to enroll in a local community college. It was midterm time and so, regardless of the issues, he had to study for his examinations. Who were we, he added, with our advanced degrees, ito criticize him for seizing this chance for success. Although one could only agree with him, it seemed clear that the community had lost one of its potential leaders. While co-optation can be employed by incorporating neighborhood leaders into many types of organizations, community mental health programs present an especially effective form of mystification and co-optation what we may term the "psychologicalization of discontent." No one will deny that ghetto communities are in need of improved mental health services, or that neighborhood people will find some value in seeking out and participating in such programs. However, in an environment of extreme poverty ^and oppression, to focus upon individual problems of mental health is to divert community energies from their primary task, their own liberation. The problem of the ghetto is not one of psychopathology. To convince an individual in an oppressed community that the root of his problem is intrapsychic is to mystify him, pacify his legitimate and healthy anger, and surely to oppress him I

sat in his office reading,

Malcolm

X

;

:

I

i

i

—

:

!

:

,

References Gamson, William A. Simsoc.

New

York: The Free Press,

1969. Hollingshead, A.B. and Redlich, F.C. Social class and mental illness: A community study. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1958. and interKlein, R.A. and Statman, J.M. Community crisis of Convention 1969 report. group tension: A progress the A.P.A. Langner, T. and Michael,

t

S.

The midtown Manhattan

and mental health. New York: McGraw

Life stress study.

1963. Prevention, Peck, H.B., Kaplan, S.R. and Roman, M. in treatment and social action: A strategy of intervention Orthoof Journal a disadvantaged urban area/American psychiatry, 1966, 36, 57-69. M.K., and Srole, L., Langner, T., Michael, S., Opler, Hill, Inc.,

The Rennie, T.A.C. Mental health in the metropolis. midtown Manhattan Inc.,

study.

1962.

218

New York: McGraw

Hill,

Number

Nine: Creating a

Counter-Institution Dennis Dennis

Jaffe

is

Number Nine

Jaffe

one of the directors at New Haven. Part of

in

the funds for supporting this article were provided by the Connecticut Research Commission. Yvonne Jaffe and Ted Clark are the other two directors

of is

Number 266 State

Nine. Mr. Jaffe's address Street,

New

Haven, Conn.

06511.

Number Nine was

created in October 1969 as a service young people in crisis. It was founded by a group of young people who found the frustrations and internal contradictions of working within the existing mental health system too great. It represents an attempt to create an alternative model of a service institution which helps people change, and which also is politically relevant in that it hastens the adoption of its humanistic values by a wider segment of society. I want to discuss several themes in Number Nine's development not because we have solved any basic dilemmas, but because our struggles highlight some of the concrete issues that come up when one seeks for

to apply radical approaches to personal growth as a service to a specific community.

219

RADICAL THERAPIST

220 Getting started

people Before we could open a crisis clinic for young we had to make sure we were on their side. The young like ourpeople we knew (mainly white and middle-class

had a basic and massive distrust of their parents, government and much of what they counter-culture saw around them. They had developed a which had the relating of ways of institutions, media, and

selves)

their teachers, their

trust, if

peers.

of their not the outright allegiance, of a majority they of the development of this culture

As

a result

depersonalize were sensitive and resistent to efforts to will, or blacktheir against them change them adjust them, young people mail them by withholding achievement. The and idealistic, we knew were introspective, self-critical, work to wished who adults from demanded moral honesty could define with them. When given the chance they were to build^ up concretely what they wanted. If we we had to enough trust to make our venture successful, learn to

embody

the values

of the counter-culture.

It

treat to would be presumptuous, for example, to try as dilemma their of their problems, because the nature meaningful more and new they defined it, was to develop those who had ways to relate. Our service could not be we ourselves answers helping those who didn't, because and tryquestions, same were searching for answers to the

From the first, we had ing to actualize the same values. collaboration. of style a to develop group The founders, a small but fairly representative several through lived had whom of young people, most of a twofold task. First stages of the radical movement, had traditional we had to break free personally from the

crop up assumptions about service that would not highly sellwas process planning behavior if the at every step of the information new to open and critical from the way We also had to constantly seek feedback whether of terms in efforts our evaluate in their

community and

we responded

to real needs,

and whether our

clients felt

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

221

We very quickly found that it would be a long time before we could settle on any one type of service as being right. We expected to constantly try new projects and never develop a stable set of procedures and programs, helped.

which meant that any static concepts of organization would be useless to us. In order to develop a flexible and responsive service, we decided to concentrate on our own personal growth as a staff, and this has turned out to be one of our chief

Our feeling was that if we worked ourselves to actualize our values in our own relationships, we would be likely to embody these values in our service to others. Concentrating on our own growth attractions to volunteers.

among

and openness as a community also allowed us to become comfortable in criticizing each other, which is crucial to any community which does not want to structure in

its

own

institutionalize

and

blind spots.

With a vague and ambiguous collaborative structure we out to offer service to young people in a radically new way. We chose a name, Number Nine, from a Beatles song, which would be easy to remember and identify us in a way that mental health clinic would not. We knew of centers in other cities which operated switchboards, referral and set

counseling services twenty-four hours a day, offered emergency housing for runaways, dealt with bad drug trips, and helped in family crises. All of these seemed valid needs, and no other services in New accept responsibility in these areas.

Haven seemed

to

We

decided that our services should be offered free, and that we could build greater trust and respect confidences by not asking names. We felt also that this would be the best defense against police interference with our drug or runaway counseling.

Number Nine opened two weeks

after the planning a free storefront from the Redevelopment Agency, an apartment/crash pad borrowed from the Free School, and telephones on credit. After a tremendous initial influx of volunteers to form the staff, and young people with various problems phoning and coming in, we were able to attract donations and $13,000

process began, with $100,

222

RADICAL THERAPIST

buy a condemned house to fix work full-time, and meet expenses.

in foundation funds to

up,

hire seven staff to

We

now have

about

who make from five room and board at our our house for people who

fifteen full-time staff

to twenty dollars a week, plus

house. We have ten spaces in are going through personal or family crises and need a place to stay for a short time, and we have a psychedelic bus and rock band which travel around and give shows and help out at rock festivals, which sometimes also bring in

money.

We

just

moved

into a four-story building

which

we can

use for such new programs as an alternate high school, personal growth center, and creative art center. This illustrates both the opportunity and the need for creative expansion of current views of social services. All of our activities grew out of our interaction with young people, and dialogue about what they needed for growth in a world which they saw as largely hostile. While psychotherapy, encounter groups, family counseling, and other social services form a large part of our work, they seem to take on meaning and relevance by their connection to our other activities. Our activities are unified through our growing, and still largely fuzzy, conception of ourselves as a community within a larger alternative culture which is working for broad changes in the fabric of our society.

Making contact with our community Traditional institutions have a passive idea of offering you open up, perhaps announce it to other profes-

—and

service

wait for people to come. If they don't like they can leave. Many such services, like court, welfare, or school counseling and mental hospitals, utilize compulsion to get their clients. We believe that a service has to justify itself to its clients, and constantly ask the community it serves whether it is seen as useful. This cannot be done by bureaucratic means, as for example a committee, because these means are unlikely to attract those who might be critical or have fresh ideas to offer. The best way to do this, we found, is to be in the sionals,

what they

get,

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

223 community in as many and as active ways as we can. Our concepts come from the more active forms of community organization, where the first step is to fight the inertia and apathy of people who are accustomed to passive acceptance of a status quo they disagree with. In mental health the analogous problem is that people who seem to

be

in

the greatest distress usually have defense mechanisms that keep them from actively seeking help even if it happens to be available. Ironically many mental health institutions take the attitude that people whose problem is an inability to accept their help should

be punished. We sought to broad as possible, so that people, whatever their problem, would feel comfortable in at least trying us out. We also wanted to move out in the community, and offer many ways to get involved in our program, so that we could reach those very people who

make our image

as

are

not usually helped because they deny their difficulties, get service agencies angry at them, or just put other people off. We did this by being visible. We. (1) sent staff to places in the

community where we expected

participated

in

other

activities

of

to find clients,

the

(2)

counter-culture,

(3) advertised in media that young people responded to' (4) made our staff and our own community open to the point where people could drift into our meetings or office without having the burden of having to relate as a client, (5) created the bus and band, which was not only fun for us but demonstrated that we were involved in ways that young people respected. As a by-product of our openness, one of the greatest

problems we have is not being sure who is on our staff. We have a weekly community meeting to which anyone can come, and people are free to sit in on any staff meetings. Anyone can help out on such things as building our house, fixing up the storefront, or going out with the bus. We found that while diffuse boundaries cause a lot of confusion, it helped young people get to us who really wanted help but had difficulty admitting it. Often our community or staff meetings became therapy sessions or feedback, where people got the kind of information they would get

224

RADICAL THERAPIST

from therapy, without ever having to put themselves down by asking for it directly. They accepted it in that context, where they might not otherwise, because that was the way we operated and they respected that. So far this procedure has sufficed to deal with

difficult

where someone creates a disruptive.

problems of social control,

lot of tension in others or is

We try to get at the meaning of a conflict rather

by creating rules or boundaries. problem we had in starting was to create trust in the entire youth community. We found that suspicion of any agency, even a new radical one like ours, ran almost to paranoia. Several times we found ourselves the victim of rumors that we were informers, which were not generated out of malice, but were due to genuine misunderstandings or foul-ups by our staff. We always dealt with such situations by going to the people we knew were critical and trying to work things out. We found that young people demanded an almost complete moral purity from an institution, and were put off by any dealing that showed we were less than they wanted us to be. We tried to maintain informal networks at each local high school and stay in touch with the "freak" community by sending our staff to hangouts and talking to people. They are aware of our shortcomings and our failures, but as time goes on they begin to see our honesty and our pluck in remaining open despite them, so we are beginning to outlive our criticism. Bringing our bus to festivals, even if at first we were astonishingly inept showmen, has brought us a visibility and energy in meeting people and learning about their problems that we could not have gotten any other way. than resolve

The

it

restrictively

greatest

How we

are helpful

The ways

that

we help

have traveled far beyond the due to the incredible range offered to us through the new media and clients

traditional limits of counseling,

of possibilities

of growth/self-expression developing with the counter-culture. Other than a few basic ground rules, our

forms

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

225

basic principle has been experimentation. Some of the organizers had experience with psychotherapy, as well as community organizing and political confrontation, and our style is a blend of these two influences. have tried to look critically at each of our preconceptions about helping

We

others, in order to get back in touch with the whole person and his dilemmas. Our method at first was to be available as listeners from the moment a person came in or phoned up. We would try to look as openly as possible at all

aspects of the situation that was presented. Through we tried to get our client to look at other aspects

questions

of his situation. We responded naturally out of our own understanding and experience with other situations, often going into some of the seeming contradictions in what the

was saying, or helping him to explore other outcomes than hopelessness. client

Some general characteristics of the youth counter-culture are an emphasis on immediate experience, dealing directly with people, knowing one's feelings, and a willingness to look directly into areas of anxiety. tried to incorporate these into our counseling style. In addition, we learned

We

from our

clients that one of the primary characteristics of a personal crisis is the storage and inability to discharge strong feelings. goal for counseling then is to help people recognize and deal with feelings around their situation, for

A

example, toward family or boyfriend. We also began to all the relevant people in the session, because we

include

began to see that resolving a situation required work by all the main characters. This led us into family counseling and groups of friends or couples. Now more than one-third of our clients (about ten new contacts a day) eventually have one to four lengthy family sessions. We were surprised at our clients' willingness to call in their family, even when in the past they had dealt with parents by rebellion or flight. Parents also

had little trouble cooperatleading us to feel that people do not really wish to maintain a generation barrier, but are forced into it by feelings they do not know how to understand. ing,

which

is

We

226

RADICAL THERAPIST

have found that our involvement and immediate service has impressed parents as much as it did our clients. Another aspect of our method is our involvement in all aspects of the situation; not merely counseling but also obtaining other services, jobs, or housing.

We

originally

had planned to make many referrals to outside agencies. As we began to get feedback about the outcome of our initial referrals, we found that most of them (if they ever got there) were rarely dealt with in a way that they felt was helpful. We began to sense that our difference in values and commitment to building an alternate culture made us acutely sensitive to the irrelevance and lack of

When we make referrals, as for abortions or legal aid, we found that we had to take initiative to ensure that our client got

responsibility of other agencies to our people.

did

service,

and

offer counseling

around the

legal or medical

was needed. We began to view referrals as an adjunct to what we did, so that we felt responsible to go with our clients, and maintain contact until they obtained relief from the problem they brought in. We tried not to narrow or evade responsibility to help with any problem, service that

to act as a parent or friend would. In contrast, agencies define responsibility only for providing a specific kind of service, so that for example a psychiatrist would he only had to do therapy. We began to deal with many people having

feel that

difficulty

breaking free of their parents, getting close to other people, or dealing with an educational system that seemed irrelevant and unconcerned about their welfare. We developed a variety of groups around common themes and issues, both scheduled and spontaneous. Our association with the Free School led us to work with high-school students in initiating educational reforms in schools and outside. We took the initiative when, for example, large numbers of young people came in about difficulties from a single source, to act as ombudsman or mediator on behalf of our clients. This year we will have a lawyer working with us in the very important and usually ignored area of civil

and constitutional

rights for

young people.

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

227

Another service that developed is the residential crisis center. We found that there was no place where a young person could go when his parents were having difficulties or were for some reason unable to take care of him, where a person could work out the transition of leaving home to work, for runaways to deal with their problem and reconcile themselves with their parents, and for a score of other difficulties. Usually, a youngster in such a situation ended up in jail or a mental hospital, starting a cycle which very soon made him feel either bad or crazy. The house environment is flexible and still in the process of denning itself. Most of our full-time staff live in the large house as a

commune, and

residents hopefully

become

part of the

ongoing community for their stay of up to a month. We try to offer a free and open place for young people to look into themselves and receive shelter and support for that process.

The

staff

Our staff represents another radical departure from established institutional policy. Basically, we did not find that education or credentials had any relationship to intelligence, sensitivity, or ability to help others,

and so

we have never looked to professionals for our staff. (We do, however, utilize some professionals as consultants, and in many cases their experience and involvement has enabled us to understand better what we are doing.) We felt that young people who had learned by experience, who had gone through personal

crises themselves,

were the most

suitable to help others, provided that they had worked out their difficulties sufficiently to enable them to focus

energy on another person. originally

came

as clients.

Many

The

of our full-time staff

mainly of highschool students and dropouts or vacationers from college, with a median age of twenty. Most of our staff have used drugs, many have been addicts or in mental hospitals,

and

all

staff consists

of us are in the process of searching for an identity

228

RADICAL THERAPIST

and meaningful work

as part of a

movement

to change

society.

We

see working at Number Nine for a year or so not as a career, but as a stage of our own growth, which combines

community

service with a meaningful learning and growth experience. This short-term and educational aspect leads to the tremendous energy and dedication in the work the staff

hope

does. Since

we

constantly incorporate

new

faces,

we

commitment as an organization. We hope we are a school for community leaders in social change. Each of our staff, as he graduates (without certificate), should be prepared to work in and form a growth-oriented institution. The training process is the work itself. A new staff memto withstand rigidifying or loss of

ber initially watches others working and counseling, and then takes initiative to get involved in one of the projects or develops a new one. Our whole culture is training, because outside norms are overturned as much as possible, and our staff must develop a way of dealing with each other that is different from the way they have before. Alternative cultures were first artificially created in T groups or encounter groups for training or growth, and our educational nature stems from the extent to which we can actualize these new values in our culture and help people overcome personal difficulties that inhibit them from operating on this level. Our meetings are analogous to counseling sessions in that we discuss all aspects of a situation, including our feelings, and then collaboratively reach a decision. Leadership comes from being involved to the point of having the relevant information to make a decision, or having the energy to carry it out and take responsibility for it. Thus, learning, growth, and leadership are all defined in terms of effective action, which is in sharp contrast

to

educational

institutions

whose

criteria

are

largely irrelevant to action.

Our history over the first year can be looked at as an experiment with various styles of leadership. After the first three months it became apparent that the concept of pure participatory democracy was not working, in that

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

229

three of the founders were doing the greatest share of the work and decision-making. This was due to their greater

experience in radical service organizations and to the had arranged for funds which paid them to work full time for Number Nine. Other staff felt guilty about not working as much, found it harder to initiate acfact that they

tended to defer in making decisions, and had personal and outside pressures on them. The three who were assuming more and more leadership found themselves tion,

difficulties

members. They

in the position of therapists to other staff

became

the directors, which concretized the differential in leadership, and made the directors more comfortable in exercising authority.

As Number Nine grew and found funds to

work

full-time this structure

to hire others

became inadequate. The

new

staff began to develop the skills that the directors had, and the structure developed some of the drawbacks of the

The directors felt that nobody was taking responsibility, while the staff felt the directors held them back. During the summer the entire structure was called into question, and the three directors hierarchical organization structure.

stated that they wished to bilities

by the

staff,

be relieved of

organization for a further year.

more time

their responsi-

although they would remain in the

to looking critically at

They wished

Number

to devote

Nine, and help-

ing other organizations get started. The staff elected six of the ten full-time staff members to be directors, which

corresponded to the exercising initiative

staff

members who

felt

and making decisions

in

comfortable

ambiguous

situations.

Number Nine

as a

community

Although we are an institution and an organization, Number Nine tends to think of itself as a community. This in line with the counter-culture assumption that working and living should not be separated, and that people should be open and intimate in work relationships. In addition, is

230

RADICAL THERAPIST

the staff mostly lives together, so that social and houseactivities are integrated with our service work.

keeping

The reason for the emphasis on community, and the attempt to include its volunteers and clients in its activities, stems from our concept of what "cure" we offer people in difficulty. Traditionally, improvement in therapy is based on adjustment to the usual situation, or gaining enough independence from the therapist to leave him. Since we are oriented toward rejection of the status quo, we must do more than help the person to some degree of comfort with himself. We try to offer him an alternative society if his growth through counseling leads him to want to commit

himself to personal or social change. Our community tries to do this, so we would not necessarily see "cure" as getting to the point where a person leaves us, or loses his depen-

dence on us. Instead, we would define his dependence based on the quality of his participation, and invite clients to join us. Many clients join the staff, or hang around while they continue to absorb what we have to teach or offer. We encourage this, to the point where we have a fairly firm policy of not asking anyone to leave. We can tolerate having disturbed people around because we have a wide range of acceptable behavior, and because we are persuasive in asking people to look into the effects of their behavior. We enlist support by creating the feeling that we are moving as a community toward goals a young person might share, and are asking him to participate. We have less difficulty with discipline than a school or hospital, which takes few pains that its goals are shared with its inmates.

We have been praised and criticized because at times we seem like a religious community (or a fantasy system). We have "rites" at rock festivals and inspire a religious devotion to our values, and use openness and group pressure to communicate and enforce our norms. Many of our people also use drugs and seek a communal consciousness, and we have frequent intense encounter groups. This is a valid way to look at what we do, to say that we are just changing values rather than improving them.

Our

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

231

"religion" seems to be fairly effective in building a shared

most other institutions have found that it is this sense of a religious community, where people are close and dedicated, that most often accounts for young people coming to us in the numbers that they have. The meaning that we represent to them, while partly based on a fantasy, is the reality on which we build their own sense of themselves, and faith in their ability to do what they want, and find what they want, despite depressing world or home situations. This community feeling is a form of creative and worthwhile

set of values, while

currently are failing in that area.

We

energy that seems more powerful than psychotherapy alone for producing personality change.

The

and depressions caused by trying produce crises in our community and in its members, so that we have a constant source of powerful learning situations to face. A primary function of the directors is to utilize personal and group crises, such as shared frustration stemming from a fear of getting close, or goofing off based on unresolved anger, as learning opportunities. This increases each staff member's comfort with his own strong feelings, and willingness to look at them. There seems to be no better training for counselors. The constant ability for Number Nine to disarm serious crises by resolving them not in the restrictive sense of fears, avoidances,

to live at this level

making

rules to prevent them in the future, or making informal social norms to avoid such threatening issues, but through actively dealing with what is happening in a way which leads to greater understanding by each person, is probably the source of its great strength and great attrac-

tiveness as a

working and growing community.

Number Nine

as social

change

In a political sense, we feel that a community like Nine, if it can survive and grow, will pose a constructive threat to education and social service institutions.

Number First,

we

their jobs

prove to bored and tired bureaucrats that do not need to be dull or frustrating. We can

will

RADICAL THERAPIST

232

We

can that satisfaction will lead to better service. they why clinics health mental community demonstrate to others. lose so many customers, and frustrate so many counseling of modes can develop and practice with new from a wide variety of sources, such as Eastern religions can challenge schools to look into centers.

show

We

We

and growth

and responsibility of young helping people by having their students working effectively challenging pose to students educate also others. We can their concepts of the maturity

and alternatives to their educational system. And we can educate parents who come to us to the social them fear changes that are happening, and perhaps make type of the for model a be to trying are them less. We of life that treatment, the kind of education, and the style questions

we

want.

We

do

this in

we

politics

are

a

way

more

different

from the confrontation Although we respect

familiar with.

political conand many of us feel the need for serious survival and own our for frontation, we have decided that differently. world the with deal will we for our own values of comkind the of model a as ourselves see Since we relate to chosen munity we would like to live in, we have

on

this

model

political

our current to institutions outside us. In

m

many situation violent confrontation seems way to obtain redress for the vio-

cases to be the only

clients are primarily lence perpetrated on us. However our majority of them large the for and middle class and white,

We do not not and never will be their style. been politalready have feel a need to reach those who not yet are who people icized, but rather seek young for what it is, violence with deal and ready to recognize us. We see ourand what it is doing to people around toward movement a to selves as recruiting new people with old working than rather massive cultural changes,

violence

is

aC

similar aim.

We

try

Our contacts with adults have a and engage many people in to make ourselves visible, our community-as modeling by dialogue. We do this

much

as

we can

outside.

For example,

in our frequent talks

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

233

PTAs, community groups, or mental health workers we do not give lectures. We rather try to conduct exchanges, which, similar to our meetings and counseling sessions, deal as much as we can with the feelings and reactions to

of those

whom we are

addressing. Instead of providing a lot

which can be misunderstood, we work to lessen the fear and hostility that keep adults from getting into meaningful encounters with young people. We practice subtle confrontation. For example, we would send a former of information

patient to addresss a hospital staff, or a high-school student to a PTA, or ask parents who ask us questions about drugs why they can't ask their child or read a

book about

it.

We

our audience, but

do not blunt or

we

try to offer

it

soften our message for in a context of friend-

and basic respect for what our audience has to say. We try to plant a seed of doubt in their prejudices, that will lead them to look further into the counter-culture. We are armed with the knowledge that we have more fun, and that we are nice people, even if they don't think so at

liness

Adults who hear us usually come out feeling better about us and themselves. We try to create a change in each interaction we have with the community, in such a way that those we contact come back for more. We encourage people to visit us when they are suspicious, and include them if they come to our meetings. Gently but firmly we hope that people will begin to respond to what we have to say. We offer workshops and seminars for parents and families. When they say they want to get involved in our work, we do not discourage them or put them off. We of course mention our financial needs, which are considerable, but we also tell them that we would like them to gather their friends for an evening discussion with some members of our staff, at their home. In this way we can not only solicit funds, but communicate to a small group the meaning of what we are doing. This is community organization at its core. We ask our adult friends to help us by talking to other groups. This is the crux of our method of working for radical social change, and it presupposes that other groups, first.

234

RADICAL THERAPIST

especially in the political sphere, are working and recruiting actively from people who have worked with us. This may be a naive conception, but at an individual level it

has been responsible for some powerful personal learnings by adults, has informed them about the nature of our critique of society

message

and

enlisted their aid in carrying the

further.

This paper has looked, in a somewhat oversimplified and naive way, at some of the issues that have been worked on by a community that is trying to develop a cultural alternative that goes with

its

critique of the current cul-

how to stay alive, how to own upbringing in a culture that we now resist, and how to get things done with a new set of values have had as much to do with how we developed as our tural norms.

The hard

issues of

deal with our

and values. We feel that experimental organizations form a sort of transition stage where values such human potential can be actualized, as a concrete mes-

ideals

like ours

as

sage that such things may indeed happen. We feel that such organizations cannot exist only in the laboratory, but must be visible and operate within the political reality of a community.

Dump Therapy Marilyn Becker Marilyn Becker is an ex-psychiatric social worker now working with welfare groups.

and city mental hospitals are at present being used dumping grounds for both the mentally ill and angry community members. Professionals by practicing "dump therapy" are contributing to the status quo in their usual State

as

well-intentioned way.

Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, is a model of how our large city mental hospitals perform, as reflected by its staff, its tall blank buildings, and the absence of anything but custodial care for the majority perfect

of patients!

Recently,

woman,

a

a

unmarried forty-year-old black of a welfare rights group, had been

small,

member

taken to Kings County after getting into a fight at her local telephone company office. She had gone there to complain that her phone was either being tapped or that her wires were crossed with other lines and her service was terrible.

She had been there before and had many loud fights with the manager; this time, however, he called the police. The police chose, rather than arrest and book her, to take her

235

236

RADICAL THERAPIST

to a psychiatric facility for "observation." her, the psychiatrist

had written

Upon

admitting

that the policeman

had

accused the patient of attempting to stab him with a knife (interestingly the policeman didn't charge her with any offense).

This woman's "observation" took place on a ward which was the temporary home for many angry, acting-out women, some of whom spent the day visibly restrained (not by medication but by being tied to chairs). The ward consisted of tables, chairs, tiled walls, and a television set. (Anyone "observing" my behavior in such a place would find me anxious, unusually angry, and very much disturbed.)

A

worker and psychiatrist were assigned to her They both decided that this woman needed state hospitalization, that she was delusional and dangerous. Luckily, this woman was a member of a welfare rights social

case.

group and one of her friends called Citywide Coordinating Committee of Welfare Groups to ask for help in stopping her friend's hospitalization. Our lawyer, a young dynamic black woman and myself, an ex-psychiatric social worker, went to Kings County to see what we could do. It took no time to get a visitor's pass (although it was not visiting hours) because of our "professional" identities. And no time to find the ward and the patient. The patient's again friend was with us and the four of us were allowed

—

—

with very little difficulty to talk in a private office. Both the lawyer and I questioned the woman. She was quite lucid, able to answer every question, reasonably angry and upset about her predicament. She had an elaborate, somewhat confused explanation for her telephone problems and felt someone was trying to do something to her, but she was clearly neither acutely homicidal nor suicidal. What she needed was decent housing, decent health care, and a decent productive job. After this one fifteen-minute interview, we met with the social worker and the psychiatrist (who barely remembered either the case history or the case). The social worker, a sympathetic young woman, mainly argued that the patient

— COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY was

upset, her thinking not clear

237

—

and that she could use and enforced medication to "put the lid on her impulses." She implied that the woman was homicidal, based on her fight with the policeman. I, however, questioned whether this woman's obviously fragile ego could withstand the trauma of a stay in a locked-up state hospital and whether or not her return to the community after such a stay would be difficult. The social worker reminded us that "this woman thought her telephone was being tapped," at which point I mentioned that I too thought my telephone was tapped and the lawyer mentioned that she knew her telephone was tapped. The psychiatrist, ignoring most of what had been said, replied that since we had shown an interest in "the case" and were willing to sign her out, he would agree to release her. In a six-minute interview with two "professionals," neither of whom had identified himself other than verstate hospitalization

bally, the doctor reversed his decision. And the "homicidal policeman stabber" who had needed three months' state hospitalization now required only a prescription for medication. The doctor never once mentioned aftercare, or even discussed the possible side effects of the medication he was

giving.

The attendant got the patient's clothes and handed her over to us with her prescription and instructions on how to get to the pharmacy and the property department. That ended the hospital's responsibility.

We managed to find both departments. When the property clerk brought her possessions, we finally saw the knife with which she had been accused of stabbing the policeman it was less than two inches long and somewhat rounded. It could not have drilled a hole in anybody, much less ripped them up. This one incident is indicative of the dump therapy that is being used in hospitals today. Psychiatrists and social workers continue to do their well-intentioned jobs ignoring the conditions of the hospital within which they work; ignoring the obvious attempts of the community and

—

the police to

dump

troublesome angry i>lack and white

238

RADICAL THERAPIST

people into state hospitals; ignoring the irreversible that state hospitalization can have

on

harm

individuals.

And the basic problem with these kinds of wellintentioned professionals relates to their inability to define the problem correctly. The problem is not the individual patient's inability to deal with the system, or the fact that state hospitals use the wrong treatment methods (because of lack of funds or whatever). The problem is clearly that

under our present economic system human needs are second to many other considerations. And state hospitals will continue to be used as dumping grounds for people while well-intentioned professionals play their roles as agents of social control, for whatever rationalized "therapeutic" reason they have developed.

And

although the real enemy is of course not the case worker, or the psychiatrist, radical therapists must begin to develop ways to help these people stop acting as the enemy by helping create patients' rights groups and other kinds of safeguards for patients, by organizing professionals around these issues, by refusing themselves, whenever possible, to send a patient to a state aide, the social

—

hospital.

The importance

of

helping,

treating,

servicing

in-

be detached from the need to create a different system that responds to and revolves around human need. Professionals must begin to (must be forced to) refuse to dump people who need treatment into state hospitals, and they must begin to (must be forced to) focus on the creation of alternate treatment facilities. For it is obvious we must force the creation of new solutions; solutions which will benefit both the community and the patient; solutions which would not feed the fear and disdain people have learned to feel toward "crazy" people who should be put away; solutions which would destroy the huge, blank buildings that breed pathology rather than create and cultivate human potential and dividuals, cannot

health.

Spatial Relations in

Community

Dan Leibsohn Dan Leibsohn

lives

in

Cambridge,

Massachusetts.

Both the concept and the actuality of "community" in the last few hundred years have been rooted solidly in a major

That principle is the bordering of a new between people within a limited area of land. It has taken, most often, the form of a community, as wholly distinct from existing society as possible, defined by its own geographical boundaries. Utopian planners and those who have actually implemented their ideas have all grounded their attempts within this concept. The kibbutz, urban communes, anarchists, community development principle.

set of relations

corporations,

Goodman (Communitas)

Two), Buber (Paths

in

(Walden , Skinner Utopia), religious sects, com-

munity development of neighborhoods the interrelation of

new

—

are based on and a closed,

all

social relations

bounded geography. This tradition has developed out of deep

human needs

and the

failures of existing relationships in society. Warm, face-to-face relations with people who profoundly care

about each other are seen as crucial to a sense of community and as a condition that can be achieved only within

239

RADICAL THERAPIST

240

with, and a relatively small and enclosed area. Connection aspect of central also a is land and appreciation of, nature and with nature, with others, with Harmony the concept.

of course, tends to make these competitive, goals difficult, if not almost impossible. Highly over nature, control pursuing and impersonal, fragmented, led generations of people, especially since the

oneself.

The modern

city life

has

city,

alienbeginnings of the Industrial Revolution, into despair, idealized the reaction, ation, isolation, and conflict. In has been a goal of people who have desired a

community more unified, gratifying existence. The ideal is unquestionable. The

spatial conception units practicality

however, has a major problem:

derlying it, and adaptability to present conditions. The geographically bounded concept of community presents us with a commodels to pleted picture, a finished revolution. They are a large for But few. for a strive for; and are attainable larger And impractical. is concept the number of people, of the success the to essential are numbers growing) (or number, cannot ideal itself. Isolated communities, few in they themselves, Within considered totally "successful."

be

(often hostile) are subject to dependencies on an external world environment. In a larger context, they still exist in a

unhappiness. of poverty, war, cruelty, ignorance, and that seem to render reasons There are several compelling to demand an and inadequate conception the closed transitional adapted concept, one that can be thought of as

needs of a mass movement. For one enormous. Land is exthing, the economic difficulties are tracts is exceedingly large for assembly land and pensive requirements for difficult. There are also large capital any other needed for also building, not only for housing but factory. Those small workshop, school, facilities—e.g., to be people embarking on such a path are most likely small a Even needed. young and without the large sums proimpose can land) and rural commune (one building of accumulation rejected have who many on hibitive costs

and

satisfying the

capital as a personal tenet of living. Land in cities is usually far more expensive than rural

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY 241 So limitations of money definitely prohibit city communes of any size and internal consistency. Yet even if some people are able to make an initial purchase of land land.

outside the city, other reasons exist to hinder them. One of these is political. The rural areas are often very hostile to young, long-haired, communal types. Examples of politi-

have occurred across the country, usually on a technical basis inadequate housing, improper schools, health code violations, etc. Perhaps even more compelling is the population boom. There are just too many people. The land will probably not support massive numbers of people rushing out to farm (which will and already has inflated prices). There is a limit to the amount of productive, cheap land available. Consequently, a new synthesis of land and city life has to be developed based on a different concept of space. Other reasons stem directly from the realities of the growing counter-culture of youth. Many people are breaking from old structures and habits. However, no new, total cal repression

structure

is

—

being built in

old and the failure of negative results. Some

its

place.

The

destruction of the

replacement is creating some people without any supporting structural relationships have become wholly absorbed by drugs, especially speed and heroin. Immobility, passivity, crime, death. sure way to never reach "community" or anything else. At the same time, other people also feel the lack of a supporting institutional framework. These are people whose ethical and political values lead them its

A

to re-

ject the culture that

spawned them yet find it difficult or impossible to live outside of it. With professional or college training, they seek a structure that would prevent their otherwise inevitable semi-cooptation. The example of the Soviet Union provides another reason to develop practical notions about community. There, a centralized and ideologically unified effort concentrated on creating a violent revolution. This group formed the core of the new bureaucratic class which eventually came to dominate a new class structure. People there must now increasingly face the same psychological

.

RADICAL THERAPIST

242

repressions, fragmentation, and impersonality that we experience here. These characteristics of society originally produced the reaction toward community in the first place.

In contrast to concentrated effort that eventually may create similar end conditions, the building of new, humane structures within the existing framework leads people closer to the ideal reality in the immediate present. Thus, to begin making the ideal conception of community a reality, a different concept of space, one that can

serve as a transition to the end point of the ideal, is necesAnd this concept, like the ideal, can, in turn, be founded on the significance of relationships. Culture, in a broad sense, is merely its patterns of relationships, definipattions of contact with others. The more strictly defined sary.

school, and terns are called institutions. Family, work, of repatterns structured formally consumption are all families; extended than rather nuclear in five lations. we work in large hierarchical organizations rather than in in the home; we go to authoritarian schools.

We

small shops

These are general categories of relations that vary among partly culcultures. Other aspects of relationships are also reactions to turally defined, but in a much looser manner: and (even certain phenomena, perceptual patterns, roles, less structured) -looks, gestures,

walking

down

the street,

general reading the paper, or riding the subway (the organization of daily reality) born. physical environment exists into which we are exist also which relations of patterns the

A

It

reinforces

(e.g.,

the

modern

city spatially fragments

our livesand

it is the psychological fragmentation). But just environment physical the human beings only who build of patterns the structure who only as it is human beings the U.S. now, In society. our of core very the relations, the relationships are not fulfilling, to say

reinforces

however, our

occur in the context least All relations within institutions and the family school the of true as is of hierarchy. This in all aspects of as of the corporation. Competition to dominate produce, seek to relations is the rule.

We

try to

be

efficient

and

rational within a privatistic

our

We

and m-

.

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

243

We act one way with

one person and another way with another person based on socially denned roles. Neurosis, repression, alienation, and despair are frequent results. Rarely do people relate to each other as indeterminate wholes rather than through the socially denned roles which call for authority, power, rationality, competition, and dishonesty. However, it is just this capacity to relate wholly and spontaneously to others that is a source of unification. To breach another and be breached. Only in relation to others rather than in relation to God or to the self does man break the barriers erected around him by modern relational patterns. "Man can become whole only in virtue of a relation to another self (Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, p. 168.) Neither capitalism (individualism) nor socialism (collectivism) has been able to pierce the isolation barriers of modern man. new pattern of relations is needed that will seek to enhance our capacities to relate to each other. Not to superimpose, but to respond, to give and take, to cry and laugh as if one is feeling what the other feels. To cherish the uniquenesses of others, to respect and support their self-definitions; indeed, to help each other find those unique definitions. This combines positive aspects of the city (diversity, privacy, independence) with those of community (warmth, identity, selfdividualistic context.

A

realization, security )

In our society, relations are structured in accordance with the requirements of a privileged stratum. Hierarchy to control of them. Rational, people are needed to operate and manage them. Competitiveness and individualism are essential to producin

institutions is crucial

efficient

and consumption and form the value foundation of an irrational economy. We can restructure (or re-form) our patterns of relations. They can be based on other values: cooperation, extion

pression of the nonrational, play, efficiency only within limits,

harmony with the environment, nonhierarchical auwork viewed as fulfillment, human development.

thority,

RADICAL THERAPIST

244

Human

relations are patterned

by humans.

We

do have a

relations can be basic unit of the re-formation of of these numbers increasing the living commune. There are spatial new a to nucleus They form an essential "

The

groups concept of community.

The people

living in

them have

other values, made a definite and strong commitment to the existing than living other to new relations, to ways of communal toward steps ones And they have made initial people to other know to exists desire consumption. A deep others and to to up open to wholeness, and find unification

alone may express this be opened up. Individuals who live to make the leap, unable desire for change. If, however, points. They may beginning as suitable they may be less

tend to relate in the old given forms. # Basically, living commune is only a beginning. affected, those involved only certain sets of relations are aspects of consumption. some and (nonwork) with leisure and go to work, to homes their leave must still People relations have, of other school, to entertainment. These

still

But the

course, remained unaltered.

They

are

still

hierarchical,

m

the counteract these effects, people competitive, etc. by one relations, other basic units can begin to change these institutionalall reshape one That is people can begin to that are based on more ized patterns of relating in ways and life-styles—just as relating, of ways humane values, the living commune they did in making the shift to the

To

m

first

place.

The

traditional concept of

-,

.

-

community space would prob-

neighborhood or even a ably call for organization of a new concept of community. larger area like a college a broader area, over relations space would look instead at is important, What "region." a as area maybe as much community of difficulties though, is the relationship. The regeography closed and tied to a concept of a bounded relationships through community quire the perception of

A

m

a livexample, someone over a broader area. In a crude atand/or workshop community ing commune works in a his from distance some located tends a free school, both

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY residence. to a

He may

use

communal

transportation.

245

He

goes

farm one week each month and helps to grow the food

he eats that

is

distributed

by the communal transport

ser-

vice.

That is, all the" relations that he formerly entered into, which were based on the existing values of society, are replaced by other relations based on values of the living commune. This is exactly the same as the old concept of community except that the reference frame of space is much different. It is not enclosed; it is much larger; and it exists (spatially) at almost all points, side

of society while

cance to

this

its

by

side with the rest

Of key signifiModern communi-

contacts are minimized.

new concept

is

mobility.

cations make contacts and relationships possible that were inconceivable under the traditional concept. In particular, cars and telephones have given people tremendous capacity to relate over

to

and through space. Technology can be made

work for us. Utilizing this concept of space, the difficulties arising

from the other concept are reduced. Land assembly and immediate ownership aren't necessary, and the costs involved are thus reduced. Build or rent wherever possible as small but isolated units. In this process of federating isolated living units to begin to redefine other relationships, a structure is formed that begins to replace the one we

dropped out of. It can help give the meaning that drugs now offer and it can be the vehicle to keep trained people from reentering the rejected relations. This can occur for larger numbers of people. And political protection is enhanced by the combination of numbers, resources, and expertise through federation. Finally, a new concept of space and land sharing can emerge that will permit more people to experience nature and rural life. Essential to the concept is the combination of production and consumption. In the past the separation of these activities has resulted in the inevitable co-optation to capitalist values and practices. Producer co-ops tend to become bureaucratized in the pursuit of greater efficiency that, in turn, makes the co-op competitive. Consumer co-ops are

RADICAL THERAPIST

246

buying co-ops whose members tend to be interested only in least cost of the goods bought (Buber, Paths in Utopia). Combination of these relationships in a geographically enclosed community has been the traditional answer in the prevention of co-optation. However, these relations can also be combined in a spatially discontinuous really

set of relations that I

have been describing.

already, a partial consumption important to begin expanding the areas of consumption; it is even more crucial to develop an economic base within them. The prime organizational form for both functions can be a federation of the living communes. Some aspects of consumption and production can best be accomproduction plished through a federation. Certain types of work larger a and capital, larger will require a larger scale,

The

"living"

co-op. It

commune is,

is

instance, force than any single commune can muster. For in a coma bottling operation or community production munity workshop^may most efficiently be federated. Like-

some consumption

wise,

activities

may

also

be operated

the case of food grown most on rural communes, as well as of a photographic darkroom. production and the other hand, some functions of efficiently if federated.

Such

is

On

"living" consumption may best be operated within each the located be can centers day-care Small commune. consumed best are living room. Many consumption items however, within this unit also. Of prime significance, lnto base economic an of building the of is the beginning attempts to build: our Otherwise communes. "living" the means of new lives will come to naught. There must be to destined are we which without supporting the members

m

continue fragmented existences. that seem There are a few areas of economic relevance weavpotting, art: and to suggest themselves. One is crafts is services: Another photography. ing, making clothing, planning, advocacy, care, legal services, architectural

day

decentralized education. Light industry that can be easily

another possibility. probably best Most could be debe federated. In this way, a pool of skills to the

home or community workshop

is

of these, at least in the beginning, could

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY veloped and best

utilized. It

would

247

also facilitate, for in-

stance, the sale of the craft goods as well as their production. The vehicle for this can be a "community center" house, that is, another home rented by the federation.

Tools of

all

sorts

darkroom, machine — —would be communally owned and potters'

wheel,

tools for light industry

A

day care center could also exist there. used in the house. Goods produced could be sold from the front room. The house could also provide an area for recreation and meetings, and as a point for the distribution of goods. It could also serve as a recycler of goods and as the place for largescale canning and preserving of foods, and for storage in general. As the number of people and communes. grows, new federations (probably geographically based to some extent) can break off and form new organizations, perhaps based around similar community centers. Slowly, movement toward neighborhood and spatially enclosed communities can be made. Concerning the possibilities for an economic base of a federation, a day care center might be ideal in conforming to many of the requirements. Of necessity, any economic venture will be knit into the larger economic structure. Therefore, it is desirable to produce a product or provide a service that offers as little sustenance as possible to that structure. Day care, in fact, can help to chip away at that structure through its effects on the family and the value changes. And because of the alterations occurring in the relations between men and women, these value changes will maintain high priority and be resistant to co-optation. This suggestion is not meant to minimize the technical difficulties involved. But day care does seem to offer excellent possibilities. Women want to be freed from some of the caring for their children at all hours so that they too can take part in creative activity. Cheap day care, of high quality, is scarce. People living under new values and relations would (or should) be ideally suited to care for children. For them, it would be a wonderful opportunity to have children around, to learn their problems and joys, to play with them. (We are now almost totally isolated from

248

RADICAL THERAPIST

age and social groups other than our own.) Day care would bring the members together in another set of relations under a new set of values. Income would come in from it. But most important, our responsibility to the next generation will begin to be fulfilled. Another area is food. People on rural communes need money to pay property taxes and electricity bills, and pay for other essentials that they cannot make themselves. People from city communes could help in the planting and harvesting and could take care of all the distribution of the food. Hopefully, the costs of the food could be lowered. And city people could begin to understand the land and rural life. The people in the rural areas, too, would have places to stay and reasons to come to the city. And they would have legal and medical care available to them. Underlying the economic base of the "living" commune or co-op should be a new definition of work. Public and private boundaries can be reduced by working in home and community center. Disciplined hours are not important. Women will have an equal share in the production activity, and in all spheres of life. People can understand and take part in the whole production process. Economic production at the lowest possible cost will rationality not enslave the workers; instead, production and work will be to satisfy psychological and economic needs. Production and consumption have touched on many of the major patterns of relations that must be altered in order

—

—

to permit truer expression of the

human

soul; aside

from

production and consumption, they were, specifically, day care, food production and distribution, retail distribution of goods, communal living, education, and leisure. There are many other crucial sets of relations that must also be changed. Medical care and legal assistance has to be provided under these new rules of living. The media is another; underground papers are important but we need to go beyond them. Books and records can be sold at cost. Other goods can also be sold at cost, or at much lower rates of profit (e.g., record players, bicycles, automobile parts and service). Clothing and housing also have to be supplied,

COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY and transportation to success

is

is

249

yet another key area. Also essential

the support of "direct" political activity. This

might mean that each co-op could choose to offer free room and board to someone involved in political activity (e.g.,

community organizer, planner, teacher). The members themselves can also be involved politi-

lawyer,

individual

While appearing inconsischange I have suggested here, political activity is, in fact, wholly consistent and ought to continue. The continuing atrocities must be fought. Furthermore, a community is at all times dependent on the rest of society. This concept of community, therefore, is not meant to be exclusive of all other efforts toward change. It may provide one answer among many; it is meant to be cally outside the federation itself.

tent with the type of institutional

as flexible as possible.

up or rearranging only one

Individual groups setting

stitutional pattern (e.g., legal aid)

requirements.

They

in-

will not satisfy these

are not aimed at replacing

all

in-

There must be federation to we are hopelessly lost in unco-

stitutionalized relationships.

accomplish this task or else ordinated actions. The word "federation"

may

scare peo-

"do your own thing," which may be an inability to commit ourselves. This inability can tend, for individuals and for political groups, to be self-defeating. We are free when we have the capacity for commitment. Paradoxically, freedom is an act of will. Many unfederated, uncoordinated groups, and to a greater extent, individuals, are floundering. Too few of the old ple.

The

prevailing ethos

sets of relations are bility

among us

is

being replaced; furthermore, responsi-

by only a few who end up fear of commitment as both and groups seems to stem from our horror of

tends to be assumed

doing most of the work. individuals

We

Our

have always known authority as hierarchy of it. But will, leading to commitment, is also authority; and so is a federation of communes. In both cases, however, the strength and the means of implementation are organic; they stem from within and are not superimposed. That is, decisions flow from the individual authority.

so

we reject all forms

250

RADICAL THERAPIST

in the first case or from group processes, as in the second. Authority is manifested, but without hierarchy. In bare outline, then, this is the form of a new concept of communal space. The amount of change required under this concept of community space is enormous. The traditional concept of space offers, in some ways, an easier route. People can start freshly on a new plot of ground and build anew. The other concept requires cutting out each patterned relationship one by one. That means leaving others for later and enduring them in the present. All the institutional relations cannot be replaced at once; they have to be built up slowly and singly. But the effort holds the promise of a better world.

V* Further Concerns

Rights of Children Summary recommendations Workshop on

of the the Rights of Children,

Berkeley Conference, Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention, November 14-15, 1970.

Our

revolutionary children are entrusted with the rehuman nature, perverted by thousands of years of racism, capitalism, socalled communism, sexism, nationalism, and false religion. Forced limitation of their experience, in the name of pro1.

sponsibility for rediscovering the true

tection and love, has always been a central part of reactionary repression, especially for the bourgeois class. The destruction of human potential for love by repression in

childhood must end now. Children must be allowed self-regulation, encouraged to relate joyfully to their bodies without shame or sex-role

and their affectionate-sexual-sensual characters must be allowed full expression without so-called moralprejudices,

istic interference.

Development, and exploitative and pression cannot

affection

self-discovery,

exploration

and

into

free expression of revolutionary non-

nonoppressive new" sexual modes of exoccur where there is interference by imperialist Christian so-called moral laws, ridicule, or guilt, or when children are systematically kept ignorant of the

253

254

RADICAL THERAPIST

human joy and pleasure in one another. Encouragement of adult-child affectionate exchange, liberation of spontaneous feeling, and rejection of puritan frigidity plays a vital part in the development of a revolutionary teaching, nurturing, and extended family environment. varieties of

Children are entitled to civil rights and liberties in no accorded to adults. Child-prisoners in the orphanages and so-called reform schools must be liberated and allowed to find their own place in the Peo2.

way

inferior to those

ple's

community.

Adults caring for them, communes, and free children's collectives shall be supported without conditions limiting experimentation into new social forms and structures. Nonexploitative variety and choice are at the heart of the revolution.

Children are not property.

3.

No child shall be

forced to

does not suit "co" (see paragraph 5). Children must have the chance to explore alternatives and to choose from a variety of struc-

stay within any biological family

if it

combining what we now call family, school, work and apprenticeship, summer vacation, etc.

tures,

The only final judge of the suitability of a particular family or environment for a particular child must be that child.

In this period before the end of repression there will undoubtedly be many situations in which the responsibility and experience of revolutionary adults will force them

on the freedom of children reactionary repression. from both in their care to protect This need should be explained to and understood by the children, and they should be taught from an early age the skills necessary for survival under repression, such as how to lie without embarrassment when interrogated. In every revolutionary family the freedoms of individuals to some extent will be limited by the needs of other members, and the whole group, but we should always struggle to confine these limitations to rationally justified ones which are balanced by the advantages provided by belonging to the

into

some

arbitrary limitations

FURTHER CONCERNS

255

group. Like adults, the child should be free to judge that balance for coself and if co desires, co should be free to seek an alternative family group to accept co, on cos terms. child's revolt, violence, or thievery shows that the environment is not responsive to his or her needs. Materialist needs are exaggerated by capitalist advertising. The child's needs for people can never be satisfied by the nuclear family alone, but an extended family is necessary. richness of

A

A

particular forms

expected in revolutionary society as a value in itself, but also important for testing and trial, since in our present state we are limited in our knowledge of thirdworld alternative forms (reported to us by Western chauvinist anthropologists) and the full impact of a noncapitalist, ecologically sensitive, and humane technology remains unexplored. 4.

The

free

is

movement of

children in the world, explora-

and country, the forms of useful work and labor (true education), will be possible only if tion of life styles, city

children are economically independent. All children are entitled to their share of guaranteed income, fruit of the labor of all past generations, given to us in the form of the arts, sciences, technology, and capital, the last at

present stolen from the people by the institutions of capitalThe child should control cos food, shelter, and necessities of life. This is important to the individual freedom necessary for the maximum development of individual

ism.

talents 5.

to

which

will finally benefit all

We urge

all

become aware

humankind.

of our revolutionary brothers and sisters that the emotional overtones of imperial-

list language have a strong effect in conditioning children's minds to oppression, instilling Western chauvinism and cultural prejudices. These effects are difficult to overcome

in even revolutionary adulthood since they are not ideas which can be corrected, but are feelings, fears, and anxieties which can be overcome only by long struggle.

This

prejudice of all kinds. no accident that we have been tricked into using words like fuck, prick, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, or is

It is

256

RADICAL THERAPIST

asshole as insults. When we use these words as insults we teach our children that bodies are shameful, not beautiful, we make them frightened of their curiosity, and we trans* mit to them our own inhibitions about non-conventional love expression.

In these recommendations

we have

tried to eliminate

some of the sexism which has become embedded in the language by adopting the suggestions of Mary Orovan of the New York Radical Feminists. In this usage instead of using the masculine personal pronouns like "he" or "his,"

when we

really mean children of both sexes, we use the ancient alternative Indo-European root word "co." Where

language would use "he," meaning "he-she," "co" "Co" is also used in place of "him" (for him-her), with the context making the difference clear. The old possessive "his" (for his-hers) is replaced by "cos," and sexist

is

used.

"coself" replaces "himself."

Humankind

replaces mankind.

Revolutionary language must reflect revolutionary con-

and we believe this change is needed now in communications and newspapers of the people, and is preferable to the awkward grammatical structures resorted to when we avoid the normal sexist usage. In speech we sciousness all

believe revolutionaries should lovingly teach their brothers

and

sisters the harmfulness of imperialist language, encourage change, and be tolerant of long-established habits which may persist. The consciousness is what is important, not perfect use, and this can often be advanced without

raising defensiveness.

We believe these language

changes will

make an impor-

tant contribution to the unity of the people, since they

and give evidence of the new sensitivity of our brothers and sisters to one another's oppression, and the new consciousness of humankind which is behind the revoreflect

lution.

Psychiatric Draft Letters Peter

Roemer

The war goes

on. Resistance to it military machine the persists. The military needs therapists to keep its machine going: to patch up its people, to fill out its forms. Yet at every level, therapy in the military is counterfeit, serving the system instead of the people. This is an indignity to military patients; it is an indignity to military therapists, who often have very little choice about joining the service. The military system, like other such systems, must be changed. Peter Roemer is a Washington, D.C., psychiatrist.

grows,

but

This essay is partly about my whether or not it is worthwhile

Army

The

issue of

politically to help

anyone

own

identity.

debatable and can be argued elsewhere. The fact is that I decided it was and so began to see potential draftees seeking to avoid the draft and soldiers seeking to be discharged from the Armed Forces with the express purpose of helping their efforts. Sometimes they had the help of lawyers, more often not Usually my letter and their own determination not to unget out of the

or the draft

257

is

258

RADICAL THERAPIST

dergo military service were

all

they had to support their

cases.

At the beginning I saw things with the Army's eyes. I thought: "I want to help this man. The Army will let him out if he's Mad. They want me to certify that he's Mad. On the other hand I can only write a letter stating what I really think. Therefore I have to look carefully at this man and find Madness in him." (Mad means that a person cannot help doing the Wrong, whereas Bad means he can, but won't. What looks like pure Badness e.g., antisocial will be accepted as Madness by the Army if activity given a Mad label by the psychiatrist, the official certifier of Madness e.g., character disorder.) This made sense and it worked for a while. I wrote letters and saw in people underlying character problems of various sorts, and was even on the way to developing a nice little classification based on how one's character pathology determines one's reaction to stress (there was a good research project in there somewhere). But then I got bored and frustrated, and increasingly so. I was doing all right with the very obviously disturbed men who had no trouble accepting the Mad label, but ran into difficulties with those who did not think of themselves as Mad. I had the job of finding Madness in them. People don't like you for doing that, even if you are doing

—

—

—

My boredom and frustration (and intense some of these guys) was a direct result of my vision of them conflicting with their own vision of themselves. They were saying: "Look, I'm not crazy, the System is." To which I responded: "I know, but let me them a

favor.

dislike of

so I can write an honest letter." view of them and closed up. I got angry, things got worse, and I got less useful information. I started to wonder if it was worth it. Even the guys who defined themselves as Mad got boring after a while. How long can you stay interested in talking with a Character Disorder is not a person, Character Disorder? and is quite limited in the types of .interactions he is characteristic game to play with capable of engaging in. into your craziness a

They

little

didn't appreciate

my

A

A

FURTHER CONCERNS

259

Delinquents is "Aha, I've got you"; with Crazies it's "Don't worry, I'll take care of you." What I came to realize is that if I look for the Mad or the Bad I accept the Military View of the whole situation that the normal and healthy thing to do is serve in the Armed Forces. The question really is: Can the psychiatrist see draft clients as people and still help them get out of military service? {See is the crucial word it refers to a central organization of one's perceptions of another, and includes one's expectations of how he thinks and might behave, and how one should act in relation to him. One's own identity is crucially brought into the picture here, because one's own identity in an interactive situation is what one does in relation to the Other, and this bears an

—

—

intimate relation to what the Other does, and, portantly,

what one

him

sees

as doing

more im-

and expects him

to

do.) I think so. What is the best work that a psychiatrist can do? To see another's predicament, and empathize with it. In this he is like a lawyer, who sees predicaments also, but different kinds. The predicaments the psychiatrist is trained to see are the conflictual internal and interpersonal ones.

A

man faces the draft/He does not want to go. He is in a predicament. He might be against the Vietnam war and would feel like a sellout if he fought in it. He might be afraid that military discipline requirements would push him to the breaking point and he would kill an officer. He might be afraid of leaving his mother. Any of these situations are unenviable.

see

it,

and write about

much more

The job

it.

(It is,

of the psychiatrist

is

to

by the way, inherently

interesting and rewarding to talk to a human being than to a Crazy or a Delinquent.) Practical considerations: a draft letter, from all I can tell, is not worth much if it does not include a psychiatric diagnosis and a recommendation. I myself have no difficulty with diagnosis since I find the standard nomenclature sufficiently broad to include elements found in everyone; I have never met anyone who could not honestly be placed in one of these categories. As for recommenda-

RADICAL THERAPIST

260

anyone put into the Armed objections will have constrong Forces against his own a result; hence I can make as stress psychological siderable There is a thorny issue recommendation. appropriate the with one's own entirely here, however, which has to do to cast the wide how of question value system. It is the of the System. casualties potential for looking net in only has Should I recommend induction for a man who and disArmy, the in himself a 1/50 chance of killing depends It V2? are chances whose man qualification for a individual and the the to risk relative the about how I feel involved, and how worthwhile I think

tion—I

really believe that

particular system

each

is

called about the fact that the psychiatrist is really so owes it to the and testimony, expert his give to upon go along with System, which includes the military, to for allowing reasons traditional and established diagnoses Many psyservice? military for unfit declared men to be are really sympathetic chiatrists who would otherwise be idenprofessional of one issue—essentially

How

hung up on

this

probably most helpful here, for he has asked most important question of all: "Whose the persistently a red herring, agent are you?" Professional "expertise" is a man's honestly stating letter because, if anything, my another than Fact important more a is conflicts

tity.

Szasz

fears

is

and

survive

(read might) stating the probability that he could is a deceptively This the Army without killing himself. it relates to because are, you agent question, whose

deep your way of

who you owe your allegiances to (peoafraid of (organizaple or organizations), and who you are question-"expert" the to tions or people). To get back life,

of law that a stroke of genius of the adversary system gives people so and bias, without is one no it assumes what the psychiatrist esallies to help them fight. That's If he accepts himself ally. an matter, sentially is in this chucks the Expert and client, draft a to relating such in

it is

as

more honestly and image, he can deal with the situation satisfactorily.

There

is

a problem that has come up with virtually

all

FURTHER CONCERNS the psychiatrists I really tests

know

261

seeing draft clients that I think

where one stands, because

it

strips

away any

possibility of pretense. It is the case of the client

who

comes to the psychiatrist and says, "There's really nothing wrong with me but I want a letter to get out." If the psychiatrist feels there has to be something wrong with you to want to get out of the Army, he will not be able to write a letter. If not, he will. The psychiatrists I know have complained of being used in such situations. What does "used" It means being forced to do something you don't want to do. Why are they forced? Because of the vagueness of their own beliefs about what they are doing: they would like to be able to write a letter for everyone, but in fact only feel comfortable writing a letter for someone who is

mean?

"sick."

In conclusion: psychiatric training may or may not teach you something about people, but it sure as hell gives you status in the wider society. If psychiatrists are going to help change what needs changing, they better use whatever power they have to do it. The medical degree is power. When an Army officer lends his effort to opening a GI coffee house it gives the others a boost of morale to see someone risking established status in supporting a disapproved action. Similarly with psychiatrists saying, as psychiatrists, that men should not be drafted, or this war is an atrocity, or anything else. The American Psychiatric Association would not take a stand on the war at their past meeting because opinions on the war have nothing to do with "expert" opinions about mental health. To say that, you either have to have perverted ideas about what

—

constitutes mental health, or, more likely, steadfastly refuse to think seriously about the effects on mental health of a

genocidal petrators.

war

that

psychologically

destroys

its

per-

Gay

Liberation Manifesto Carl Wittman

From Chicago Seed from Miller

On 1.

with some help

Francis.

orientation

What Homosexuality is

Nature leaves undefined

The gender of that object is Humans originally made homosexuality

the object of sexual desire.

imposed

socially.

taboo because they needed every

and

bit of

raise children: survival of species

energy to produce

was a

priority.

With

overpopulation and technological change, that taboo continues only to exploit us and enslave us. As kids we refused to capitulate to demands that we ignore our feelings toward each other. Somewhere we found the strength to resist being indoctrinated, and we should count that among our assets. We have to realize that our loving each other is a good thing, not an unfortunate thing, and that we have a lot to teach straights about sex, love, strength, and resistance. Homosexuality is not a lot of things. It is not a makeshift in the absence of the opposite sex; it is not hatred or rejection of the opposite sex; it is not genetic; it is not the result of broken homes except inasmuch as we could see the sham

262

263

FURTHER CONCERNS of

Amerikan marriage. Homosexuality someone of the same sex.

is

the capacity to

love

Bisexuality is good; it is the capacity 2. Bisexuality to love people of either sex. The reason so few of us are bisexual is because society made such a big stink about homosexuality that we got forced into seeing ourselves as either straight or nonstraight. Also,

many

gays got turned

ways men are supposed to act with women and vice versa, which is pretty messed up. Gays will begin to turn on to women when 1) it's something that we do because we want to, and not because we should; and 2) when women's liberation changes the nature of heterooff to the

sexual relationships.

We

continue to call ourselves homosexual, not bisexual, we do make it with the opposite sex also, because saying "Oh, I'm bi" is a cop-out for a gay. We get told it's to sleep with guys as long as we sleep with women, too, and that's still putting homosexuality down. We'll be

even

if

OK gay

until

everyone has forgotten that be complete.

it's

an

issue.

Then

we'll begin to 3.

Heterosexuality

Exclusive

heterosexuality

is

a fear of people of the same sex, it's antihomosexual, and it is fraught with frustation. Hetero-

messed up.

It reflects

sexual sex is messed up, too: ask women's liberation about what straight guys are like in bed. Sex is aggression for the male chauvinist; sex is obligation for the traditional woman. And among the young, the modern, the hip, it's only a subtle version of the same. For us to become heterosexual in the sense that our straight brothers and sisters are is

not a cure,

it is

a disease.

On women Lesbianism It's been a male-dominated society and that has warped both men and women. So gay women are going to see things differently from gay men; they are going to feel put down as women, too. Their 1.

for too long,

— 264

RADICAL THERAPIST

liberation

is

tied

up with both gay

liberation

and women's

liberation.

This paper speaks from the gay male viewpoint. And although some of the ideas in it may be equally relevant to gay women, it would be arrogant to presume this to be a manifesto for lesbians. 2.

Male Chauvinism

All

men

—we were brought up

chauvinism

assume that

are infected with male

that way. It

means we

women

play subordinate roles and are less human than ourselves. (At an early gay liberation meeting, one guy said, "Why don't we invite women's liberation they can bring sandwiches and coffee.") It is no Wonder that so few gay women have become active in our groups. Male chauvinism, however, is not central to us. We can junk it much more easily than straight men can. For we understand oppression. We have largely opted out of a system which oppresses women daily our egos are not built on putting women down and having them build us up. Also, living in a mostly male world we have become used to playing different roles, doing our own shitwork. And, finally, we have a common enemy: the big male chauvinists are also the big antigays. But we need to purge male chauvinism, both in behavior and in thought among us. "Chick" equals "nigger" equals "queer." Think it over.

—

3.

Women's Liberation

equality

and dignity and

in

They are assuming their doing so are challenging the

same things we are: the roles, the exploitation of minorities by capitalism, the arrogant smugness of straight white middle-class Amerika. They are our sisters in struggle. Problems and differences will become clearer when we begin to work together. One major problem is our own male chauvinism. Another is uptightness and hostility to

—

homosexuality that many women have that is the straight in them. third problem is differing views on sex: sex for them has meant oppression, while for us it has been a symbol of our freedom. We must come to know and understand each other's style, jargon^ and humor.

A

FURTHER CONCERNS

On

265

roles

Mimicry of Straight Society

We

are children of think straight; that is part of our oppression. One of the worst of straight concepts is inequality. Straight (also white, English, male, capitalist) 1.

straight society.

We

still

and comparison. A below two is below three;

[thinking views things in terms of order is

before B,

B

is

after

A; one

is

there is no room for equality. This idea gets extended to (male/female, on top/on bottom, spouse/not spouse, heterosexual/homosexual, boss/worker, white/black, and I

rich/poor. Our social institutions cause and reflect this verbal hierarchy. This is Amerika. We've lived in these institutions all our lives. Naturally we mimic the roles. For too long we mimicked these roles a survival mechanism. Now we are to protect ourselves becoming free enough to shed the roles which we've picked

—

institutions which have imprisoned us. "Stop mimicking straights, stop censoring ourselves!"

up from the

2.

Marriage

Marriage

is

a prime

example of a

straight institution fraught with role playing. Traditional

marriage is a rotten, oppressive institution. Those of us who have been in heterosexual marriages too often have blamed our gayness on the breakup of the marriage. No. They broke up because marriage is a contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands on both people. And we had the strength, again, to refuse to capitulate to the roles

which were demanded

of us.

Gay people must

stop gauging their self-respect by how mimic straight marriages. Gay marriages will have the same problems as straight ones except in burlesque. For the usual legitimacy and pressures which keep straight marriages together are absent, e.g., kids, what ^parents think, what neighbors say, property inheritance, well they

!

etc.

To

accept that happiness

comes through finding a

RADICAL THERAPIST

266 groovy spouse and

settling down, showing the world that "we're just the same as you," is avoiding the real issues and is an expression of self-hatred.

3.

Alternatives to Marriage People want to get lots of good reasons, although marriage won't

married for often

meet those needs or desires. We're all looking for and a feeling of belonging and

security, a flow of love,

being needed. These needs can be met through a number of social relationships and living situations. Things we want to get away from are: 1. exclusiveness, propertied attitudes toward each other, a mutual pact against the rest of the world; 2. promises about the future, which we have no right to make and which prevent us from, or make us feel guilty about, growing; 3. inflexible roles, roles which do not reflect us at the moment but are inherited through

mimicry and

We

inability to define equalitarian relationships.

have to define for ourselves a new pluralistic, rolemust contain both the freedom and

free social structure. It

physical space for people to live alone, live together for a while, live together for a long time, either as couples or in larger numbers; and the ability to flow easily from one of these states to another as our needs change. Liberation for gay people is defining for ourselves

and with

whom we

live,

how

instead of measuring our relation-

ships in comparison to straight ones, with straight values.

is

defined largely

straight roles.

straights' image of the gay by those of us who have violated

The

Gay Stereotypes world

a tendency among "homophile" play visible roles the queens liberated gays, we must take a clear

There

is

groups to deplore gays

who

—

As stand. 1. Gays who stand out have become our first martyrs. They came out and withstood disapproval before and the

nellies.

the rest of us did. 2. If they have suffered from being open, it is straight society whom we must indict, not the queen.

Closet Queens This phrase is becoming analogous Tom." To pretend to be straight sexually, or to

to "Uncle

FURTHER CONCERNS

267

pretend to be straight socially, is probably the most harmbehavior in the ghetto. The married guy who makes it on the side secretly; the guy who will go to bed once but who won't develop any gay relationships; the pretender at work or school who changes the gender of the friend he's talking about; the guy who'll suck cock in the bushes but who won't go to bed. If we are liberated, we are open with our sexuality. Closet queenery must end. Come out. But: in saying come out, we have to have our heads clear about a few things: 1) closet queens are our brothers, and must be defended against attacks by straight people; 2) the fear of coming out is not paranoia; the stakes are high: loss of family ties, loss of job, loss of straight friends these are all reminders that the oppression is not just in our heads. It's real. Each of us must make the steps toward openness at our own speed and on our own impulses. Being open is the foundation of freedom: it has to be built solidly; 3) "closet queen" is a broad term covering a multitude of forms of defense, self-hatred, lack of strength, and habit. We are all closet queens in some ways, and all of us had to come out very few of us were "flagrant" at the age of seven! We must afford our brothers and sisters the same patience we afforded ourselves. And while their closet queenery is part of our oppression, it's more a part of theirs. They alone can decide when arid how. ful pattern of

—

—

On

oppression

important to catalog and understand the different our oppression. There is no future in arguing about degrees of oppression. lot of "movement" types come on with a line of shit about homosexuals not being oppressed as much as blacks or Vietnamese or workers or women. We don't happen to fit into their ideas of class or caste. Bull! When people feel oppressed, they act on that feeling. We feel oppressed. Talk about the priority of black liberation or ending imperialism over and above gay liberation is just anti-gay propaganda. It is

facets of

A

268

RADICAL THERAPIST

Physical Attacks We are attacked, beaten, and left dead time and time again. "Punks," often of minority groups who look around for someone under them socially, feel encouraged to beat up on "queens" and cops look the other way. That used to be 1.

castrated,

I

called lynching.

Cops

most

have harassed our meeting places: They set up entrapment squads. Berkeley brother was slain by a cop when he tried to split after finding out that the trick who was making adin

cities

bars and baths and parks.

A

vances to him was a cop. Cities set up "pervert" registration, which if nothing else scares our brothers deeper into

j

the closet.

One of the most vicious slurs on us is the blame for prison "gang rapes." These rapes are invariably done by people who consider themselves straight. The victims of these rapes are us and straights who can't defend themselves. The press campaign to link prison rapes with homosexuality is an attempt to make straights fear and despise us, so they can oppress us more. It's typical of the fuckedup straight mind to think that homosexual sex involves tying a guy down and fucking him. That's aggression, not sex. If that's what sex is for a lot of straight people, that's a problem they have to solve, not us. Psychological

Warfare

Right from the besubjected to a barrage of straight propaganda. Since our parents don't know any homosexuals, we grow up thinking that we're alone and different 2.

ginning

we have been

and perverted. Our school friends identify "queer" with any nonconformist or bad behavior. Our elementary-school teachers tell us not to talk to strangers or accept rides. Television, billboards, and magazines put forth a false idealization of male/female relationships, and make us wish we were different, wish we were "in." In familyliving class we're taught how we're supposed to turn out. And all along, the best we hear if anything about homosexuality is that it's an unfortunate problem. 3.

Self-Oppression

As gay

liberation grows,

we

will

!

1

j

\

>

FURTHER CONCERNS find our uptight brothers

and

sisters, particularly

269 those

who

our ghettos, coming on strong to defend the status quo. This is self-oppression: "Don't rock the boat"; "things in San Francisco [or Atlanta] are OK"; "Gay people just aren't together"; "I'm not oppressed." These lines are right out of the mouths of the straight establishment. large part of our oppression would end if we would stop putting ourselves and our pride down.

making a buck

are

off

A

Institutional Incrimination against gays is if we open our eyes. Homosexual relationships are illegal, and even if these laws are not regularly enforced, they encourage and enforce closet queenery. The bulk of the social work/psychiatric field looks upon homosexuality as a problem, and treats us as sick. Employers let it be known that our skills are acceptable only as long as our sexuality is hidden. Big business and government are 4.

blatant,

particularly notorious offenders.

The U.S. Army stands dead center in a culture founded on male supremacy and anti-homosexualism, and no homosexual should be required to serve. But the Pentagon wants to have it both ways: officially it excludes a homosexual categorically if he is willing to publicly declare his "sickness," but in the last three years, as any number of gay men know, the army has drafted homosexuals even if they checked the box (obtaining not only another inductee but also useful information about him that might further his exploitation and oppression) For gay men to concern themselves about exclusion from the military is comparable .

to black people worrying about being denied entrance to the KKK. Once in, homosexuals are oppressed in every

conceivable way, and many even have to carry some of these official forms of discrimination and harassment with them when they return to civilian life.

On

sex

It is both creative expression and 1. What Sex Is communication: good when it is either, and better when

— RADICAL THERAPIST

270

it is both. Sex can also be aggression, and usually is when those involved do not see each other as equals; and it can also be perfunctory, when we are distracted or pre-

occupied. These uses spoil what is good about it. I like to think of good sex in terms of playing musical instruments: with both people on one level seeing the other body as an object capable of creating beauty when they play it well; and on a second level the players communicating through their mutual production and apprecia-

As in good music, you get totally into it and coming back out of that state of consciousness is like finishing a work of art or coming back from an episode of an acid or mescaline trip. And to press the analogy further: the variety of music is infinite and varied, depending on the capabilities of the players, both as subjects and as objects. Solos, duets, quartets (symphonies, even, if you happen to dig romantic music!), classical, folk, jazz, soul, got live if you country, rock and roll, electric or acoustic want it, and everything is permitted! The variations in gender, response, and bodies are like different instruments. And perhaps what we have called sexual orientation probably just means that we have not yet learned to turn on to the total range of musical expression.

tion of beauty.

—

Ob jectification

In this scheme, people are sexual and are human beings who appreciate themselves as object and subject. This use of human bodies as objects is legitimate (not harmful) only when it is reciprocal. If one person is always object and the other subject, it stifles the human being in both of 2.

objects, but they are also subjects,

them. Objectification must also be open and frank. By silence we often assume that sex means commitments: if it does, OK; but if not, say it. (Of course, it's not all that simple: our capabilities for manipulation are unfathomed

—

all we can do is try.) Gay liberation people must understand that women have

been treated exclusively and dishonestly as sexual objects. major part of their liberation is to play down sexual objectification and to develop other aspects of themselves

A

i

"

FURTHER CONCERNS

271

which have been smothered so long. We respect this. We also understand that a few liberated women will be appalled or disgusted at the open and prominent place that we put sex in our lives; and while this is a natural response from their experience, they must learn what it means for us.

For us, sexual objectification is a focus of our quest for freedom. It is precisely that which we are not supposed to share with each other. Learning how to be open and good with each other sexually is part of our liberation. And one obvious distinction: objectification of sex for us is something we choose to do among ourselves, while for women it is

imposed by

3.

On

their oppressors.

Positions and Roles

Much

of our sexuality

has been perverted through mimicry of straights and warped from self-hatred. These sexual perversions are basically anti-gay:

"I like to

make

"I'm not gay, but This roles.

is

it

with straight guys."

I like to

role playing at

We

its

be

worst;

strive for democratic,

This does not

mean

'done.'

we must

transcend these

mutual, reciprocal sex.

we are all mirror images of each we break away from roles that en-

that

other in bed, but that

We already do better in bed than straights do, and we can be better to each other than we have been. A note on exploitation of children: kids can take care of themselves, and are sexual beings way earlier than we'd like to admit. Those of us who began cruising in early adolescence know this, and we were doing the cruising, not being debauched by dirty old men. Scandals such as the one in Boise, Idaho blaming a "ring" of homosexuals

slave us.

—

for perverting their youth

—

are the fabrications of press

and police and politicians. And as for child molesting, the overwhelming amount is done by straight guys on little girls: it is not particularly a gay problem, and is caused by the frustrations resulting from anti-sex puritanism.

272

On

RADICAL THERAPIST

coalition

Right

—

now

the bulk of our

work has

to be

among

our-

and building free territory. Thus basically we have to have a gay/ straight vision of the world until the oppression of gays is selves

self-educating, fending off attacks,

ended.

But not every straight is our enemy. Many of us have mixed identities, and have ties with other liberation movements: women, blacks, other minority groups; we may also have taken on an identity which is vital to us; ecology, dope, ideology. And face it: we can't change Amerika alone:

Who 1.

do we look to for

coalition?

Women's Liberation

Summarizing

earlier state-

ments, 1 ) they are our closest ally; we must try hard to get together with them; 2) a lesbian caucus is probably the best way to attack gay guys' male chauvinism, and challenge the straightness of women's liberation; 3) as males we must be sensitive to their developing identities as women,

and respect

they certainly

that;

know

if

we know what our freedom is

about,

what's best for them,

See Huey P. Newton's state2. Black Liberation ment to the men of the Black Panther Party on Gay Liberation and Women's Liberation {Bird, Vol. 3, No. 40). It would be impossible to overestimate the significance of this vanguard position on the potential solidarity between third world liberation and the struggle against male supremacy and sexism by women and gay people. We must support black liberation, particularly when black people are under attack from the system; we must show our black sisters

and brothers that we mean business, and we must which our common enemies are: police, city

figure out

hall, capitalism.

—

Basically the same situation trying to 3. Chicanos overcome mutual animosity and fear, and finding ways to

FURTHER CONCERNS

273

support them. The extra problem of super uptightness and machismo among Latin cultures, and the traditional pattern of Mexicans beating up "queers," can be overcome: we're both oppressed, and by the same people at the top.

No country or 4. White Radicals and Ideologues political/economic system has treated gay people as anyknow that we are thing other than non grata so far. radical, that we are revolutionaries since we know the system we're under now is a direct source of oppression, and it's not a question of getting our share of the pie.

We

The

pie

is

rotten.

We

can look forward to coalition and mutual support with radical groups if they are able to transcend their antigay and male chauvinist patterns. We support radical and militant demands when they arise, but only as a group; we can't compromise or soft-pedal our gay identity. Perhaps most fruitful would be to broach with radicals their stifled homosexuality and the issues which arise from challenging sexual roles. Gay people also have a vanguard role to play in defining, establishing, and operating childcare centers.

Hip and Street People

A

major dynamic of gay liberation sentiment is the hip revolution within the gay community. Emphasis on love, dropping out, being honest, expressing yourself through hair and clothes, and smoking dope are all attributes of this. The gays who are the least vulnerable to attack by the establishment have been the freest to express themselves on gay liberation. The hip/street culture has led people into a lot of freeing 5.

rising

activities: encounter/sensitivity,

ing territory

for

the people,

straight 6.

make

it

ecological

consciousness^

agreement and easier for them to get their heads

communes. These are probably will

the quest for reality, free-

real

points

of

about homosexuality, too.

Homophile Organizations

1)

reformist or pokey

as they sometimes are, they are our brothers. They'll grow

274

RADICAL THERAPIST

grow. Do not attack them mixed company; 2) ignore their attack on 3) cooperate where cooperation is possible, without sential compromise of our identity. as

we have grown and

straight or

in us; es-

Notes on Fanon Phil

Brown

member of Psycholoa Democratic Society, taught

Phil Brown, a gists for

at

the Alternate

University in

New

York.

A

small number of psychologists have begun to deal with social problems, to take them into account as variables in determining behavior. Fromm and Marcuse have

Marx and Freud, but neither of them are able to rid themselves of their basically Freudian framework. Certainly, neither of them have been able to put into practice a synthesis of politics and psychoanalysis. One tried to relate

person,

however,

has

—Franz

Fanon,

psychiatrist

and

revolutionary, synthesizer of the two.

Fanon

is

read more by revolutionaries than by psyit is time for the latter to understand his he is saying is that many problems of "mental

chologists, but ideas.

What

—

—

and he is specifically dealing with Algeria are caused by the social system and can largely be removed by changing that system. Fanon shows that much of the "mental illness" of Algerians grew out of a social process

illness"

involving colonial exploitation by France. This is, of course, quickly attacked as being "simplistic," as not dealing with "inner problems," etc., but Fanon has a different

275

RADICAL THERAPIST

276

—

methodology from his detractors he sees a totalist view as necessary, a view encompassing all aspects of society, and one based on real, material foundations rather than idealistic consciousness arising from nowhere save the realm of ideas. Because of this he cannot allow for a separate system of psychology which doesn't deal with economics, politics, sociology, etc. And it is precisely this compartmentalization, which mystifies the obvious realities of people with problems, that Fanon breaks down. Two of Fanon's works deal extensively with this problem The Wretched of the Earth and Studies in a Dying Colonialism. While both are centered upon the Algerian revolution, in psychological terms the former is more concerned with severe pathological problems and the latter

—

with cultural problems. More precisely, Wretched deals with psychosis and severe neurosis, and Dying Colonialism with what might be considered mass neuroses of personal life, e.g., sexual and family-based repression. Sartre's introduction to Wretched states: "Read Fanon: you will learn how, in the period of their helplessness, their mad impulse to murder is the expression of the natives' collective unconscious." This is not the collective unconscious in the Jungian sense, but rather the social consciousness of oppressed people finally turning upon and

murdering

their oppressors.

But before dwelling on this seemingly cathartic violence, it is necessary to examine the Algerians' life style in order to see what psychological problems exist. Autodestruction is one of the most severe. Fanon states that colonial oppression:

keeps alive in the native an anger which he deprives of outlet; the native is trapped in the tight links of the chains of colonialism. But we have seen that inwardly the settler can only achieve a pseudo-petrification. The native's muscular tension finds outlets regularly in

—

in tribal warfare, in feuds between sects, and in quarrels between

bloodthirsty explosions individuals.

277

FURTHER CONCERNS

the impotence which the colonized has toward the which makes him attack his brothers and sisters rather than his masters. Much the same can be seen in the ghettos of the United States. This sounds like the psyIt is

ruler

choanalytic theory of displacement, but

much more a

it is

phenomenon. Fanon also sees this displacement of aggression (and this must be seen as a correct aggression) in myth and magic which occupy such a large part of the colonized's life; the zombies become "more terrifying than the settlers," social

thus the oppressor's power, the coloniaPs mind.

is

effectively diminished in

Another psychological trap

is

ac-

ceptance of colonialist psychology, specifically the "complexes" the "frustration complex," the "belligerency complex," the "colonizability complex," the "laziness complex," ad infinitum. This internalization, of course, weakens the struggle for freedom, but often is too subtle to

—

comprehend

at first.

pointed out in Dying Colonialism, there are what might be called mass neuroses, which arise out of repressed sexuality, authoritarian family structure, and the like, but Fanon sees these as easier to solve than the problems of mental illness described in his chapter in Wretched entitled "Colonial War and Mental Disorder." Being less severe, the former problems begin to disappear as the struggle develops, but the latter are far too strong to be resolved with such immediacy.

As

An integral part of the colonialist-instigated etiology is lack of self-awareness, and the varied defenses which attempt to compensate for

this lack.

clear in theoretical terms, but

This

is

not

use as a basis for additional understanding. in clinical terms,

is

that

Fanon

from "reactionary psychoses,"

made

examples tend to

all

that

justify its

What

is

clear,

sees his patients as suffering

in the sense that "promigiven to the disorder although in some cases mention is made of the previous history of the case." Fanon's case histories include a wide variety of symptoms and syndromes, and it is unfortunate that they are not more detailed. I shall try to give a few examples

nence

is

278

RADICAL THERAPIST

and then

Fanon

relate

them to "revolutionary therapy," which

sees as a synthesis of certain traditional

models and

revolutionary transformation. In one case, he discusses impotence in an Algerian revolutionary following the rape of his wife by French officials. In another, there are un-

mass murder by two young Algerians, thirteen and fourteen, of a European playmate they claimed they liked, but killed because he was Eurodifferentiated homicidal impulses in the survivor of a

murder. Similar to

this

is

the

pean.

An

Algerian suffering from accusatory delirium and is seen in a twenty-two-year-old Algerian who feels guilty over not having joined the FLN (National Liberation Front) Children under ten whose parents had been killed by the French showed marked love for parental images, noise phobia, sleepwalking, periodical enuresis (involuntary urine discharge), and sadistic tendencies. In women there were numerous cases of puerperal psychoses, mental disorders around the time of childbirth. The forms were varied: agitation, rage, deep depression, tonic immobility with attempted suicide, and anxiety states. Psychosomatic disorders were' also very common among Algerians, both in and out of the revolutionary suicidal attempts

.

cadres: all these mental illnesses were by Fanon and his co-workers, but they found that methods successful in other circumstances were of little avail with most of these cases since "the circumstances of the cured patients maintain and feed these pathological kinks." What then is Fanon's answer? Psychotherapy is not to be discarded, but the necessary adjunct is the na"The colonized man tional struggle for independence finds his freedom in and through violence." Fanon quotes from Aime Cesaire's Les Armes Miraculeuses in which the slave strikes the master: "I struck, and the blood spurted: that is the only baptism that I remember today." Is this revolutionary violence cathartic? Only in the

Persons suffering from

treated

—

sense that

it

represents the essence of the national libera-

tion struggle, that

it

gives the colonized

power over

his

279

FURTHER CONCERNS

psychological

time; not in the sense of ™m life for the firstfrustration-aggression or any other such

SarSs giving

does not mean that kfihng a dictionary theory. This dines* nor does rf Kpeanrids an Algerian of his mental £,urupca Algiers

marches into

does cured, but SSld^e-ns'Sl longer no etiology in factor meSZt the fundamentalpersonal-sexual and famnyfor

Mediately be

£

StI nroWems

it

is

is easier some immediacy for the to be resolved with not survive for a day were in the struggle could

accepting filial roles, etc. they to continue most is therapeutic. But it is In this fight the revolution creaUon the or run, in the struggle cleanly o ifthe long from oppression both political and free society new of a much like Che, Fanon says: very cultural. Stating this

and for humanity, For Europe, for ourselves, over a new leaf, we turn must we comrades, and try to set must work out new concepts man. new afoot a This

is

revolutionary psychology. a major task for

Radical Psychiatry Manifesto Claude Steiner 1. The practice of psychiatry has been usurped by the medical establishment. Political control of its public aspects has been seized by medicine and the language of soul heal-

+

ing (^wn XaxQua) has been medical concepts and terms.

infiltrated

with irrelevant

Psychiatry must return to its nonmedical origins since most psychiatric conditions are in no way the province of medicine. All persons competent in soul healing should be known as psychiatrists. Psychiatrists should repudiate the use of medically derived words such as patient, illness, diagnosis, treatment. Medical psychiatrists' unique contribution to psychiatry is as experts on neurology and with much-needed additional work on drugs. 2. Extended individual psychotherapy is an elitist, outmoded, as well as nonproductive form of psychiatric help. It concentrates the talents of a few on a few. It silently col-

ludes with the notion that people's difficulties have their

source within them while implying that everything is well with the world. It promotes oppression by shrouding its

consequences with shame and secrecy.

280

It further mystifies

281

FURTHER CONCERNS by attempting it is,

an ideal human relationship when

to pass as

in fact, artificial in the extreme.

People's troubles have their source not within

them but

in their alienated relationships, in their exploitation, in

polluted environments, in war, and in the profit motive. Psychiatry must be practiced in groups. One-to-one contacts, of great value in crises, should become the exception rather than the rule.

The high

ideal of

I-Thou loving

rela-

groups rather than the stilted consulting-room situation. Psychiatrists not proficient in group work are deficient in their training and should upgrade it. Psychiatrists should encourage bilateral, open discussion and discourage secrecy and shame in relation to deviant behavior and thoughts. tions should

3.

be pursued

By remaining

in the context of

f

"neutral" in an oppressive situation

psychiatry, especially in the public sector, has

become an

enforcer of established values and laws. Adjustment to prevailing conditions is the avowed goal of most psychiatric treatment. Persons who deviate from the world's madness are given fraudulent diagnostic tests which generate diagnostic labels which lead to "treatment' which is, in fact, a series of graded repressive procedures such as "drug management," hospitalization, shock therapy, perhaps lobotomy. All these forms of "treatment' are perversions of legitimate medical methods which have been put at the service of the establishment by the medical profession. Treatment left

alone, not seek

Psychological

is

forced on persons

who would,

if

it.

tests

and

the

diagnostic

labels

they

must be disavowed as meaningless mystifications the real function of which is to distance psychiatrists from people and to insult people into conformity. Medicine must cease making available drugs, hospitals, and other legitimate medical procedures for the purpose of overt or subtle law enforcement and must examine how drug companies are dictating treatment procedure through their advertising. Psychiatry must cease generate, especially schizophrenia,

282

RADICAL THERAPIST

playing a part in the oppression of women by refusing to promote adjustment to their oppression. All psychiatric help should be by contract, this is, people should choose when, what, and with whom they want to change. Psychiatrists should become advocates of the people, should refuse to participate in the pacification of the oppressed and should encourage people's struggles for liberation.

PSYCHIATRY MUST STOP ITS VAST MYSTIFICATION OF THE PEOPLE AND GET DOWN TO WORK! Paranoia

is

a state of heightened awareness. Most peo-

ple are persecuted

who

beyond

their wildest delusions.

Those

Depression is the result of alienation of human from human. Violent anger is a healthy reaction to oppression. Drag abuse is taught to feel at ease are insensitive.

children

by

their

alcholic,

nicotinic,

aspirinic

elders.

Schizophrenia is an experience saner than "normality" in this mad world. Psychiatrists are oppressed and alienated from the people. They destroy themselves oftener than any other group of people, and they suffer of frigidity, impotence, and madness just like those they help oppress. Psychiatric deception of the oppressed is at the root of people's alienation.

from The Radical Therapist

Editorials

How

Revolutionary Is a Journal?

conis a journal anyway? This question The Radical Therapist at its inception. In a McLuhan age, the medium is the message; and the printed work clearly aims at a literate elite which constitutes a

How

radical

fronted

danger for any radical enterpise.

And

yet,

journals are

often necessary and effective instruments for clarifying issues and rallying support.

media in this society are TV, radio, the and schoolrooms. Through them, the bulk of the population is socialized and instructed; and thus they small radical are heavily controlled and censored. journal aimed at a narrower leadership scarcely merits

The

influential

daily press,

A

censorship (unless

sumed

to be

it is

obscene).

From

ineffective in creating

the

start, it is as-

change in the larger

order.

Thus, The Radical Therapist runs twin dangers of being both elitist and ineffective. It is crucial to acknowledge this position, so that we can work toward being popular and productive instead. This is why these pages are open to everyone: to all people concerned with therapy systems and "mental health" care. With a broad base of experience and support, The Radical Therapist can meet its goals. We appeal to therapists

from

all disciplines, as

283

well as to

community

284

RADICAL THERAPIST

activists,

female liberation workers, clients and "patients," artists. Each person's help strength-

educators, ecologists,

ens us

all.

too the dangers of endless talk. We hope to inform and arouse our readers, to clarify basic issues for them, and thus to bring them together for more effective social action. In these aims, a journal can serve a radical

We know

function.

We

How effective we are depends on our readership. intend to publish the most relevant material we can find toward a redefinition of therapy in this society. But to be effective for further change, we need our readers' support and reactions, as well as pertinent articles submitted to us from various sources. This is the invitation we extend.

Who

Is

The People?

In this day of slogans

Who do we have TO THE PEOPLE? point.

it's

in

important to clarify a simple call out

mind when we

POWER

The question has had different answers historically. In Greece, the people was all free men: not women, not slaves. The French Revolution declared the people to be the Third Estate, the masses led by the middle class. Marxism considers the people the oppressed working class. Recent developments have suggested that many consider the people themselves and their friends. The people in democratic countries theoretically means everybody: men and women, rich and poor, therapists and clients, students and teachers, parents and children, workers and unemployed, managers and unskilled, artists and plumbers. The people's interest becomes the common interest.

But the situation is more complex. Even in "democsome people are victims of extreme exploitation and oppression, while others harvest the benefits of such exploitation. Some people have positions of power and privilege; others do not. Many people today are oppressed:

racies"

in this country,

women,

blacks, Chicanos, the young, the

FURTHER CONCERNS

285

poor; and, internationally, most of the Third World peoples on whose bodies the "democracies" of the West have built their economies. Although the middle class and elite are "oppressed" by our dehumanizing system the mass media, the sex-role stereotypes, the environment's despoliation, the lack of they are not forced fulfilling work, the moral anguish oppression as are life-threatening to suffer physical and first deal with must therefore They above. mentioned those their own privileged place in the system before claiming they are just as oppressed as everyone else. We should

—

—

not mistake the moral pangs of the privileged for actual physical oppression others suffer. TO THE PEOPLE means return of power to the oppressed and exploited, return of self-determination to those now colonialized. It does not mean government by

POWER

consensus, or token representation. The people is everyone the system crushes and seeks to crush.

Therapists today lead affluent albeit unsatisfying lives. Their task, if they would be radicals, is to support change in the society which will cost them their privileged position. Their task is to de-professionalize and help the people in

whichever ways they can. Large-scale social change requires large-scale popular support. Radical therapists must work with those they encounter towards building awareness and support. We

need to develop an alternate society which is responsive to all people's needs, which ends war and oppression, and which still preserves human values. Our radicalism must retain its humanity; otherwise it recreates the brutal immorality of the present system. Our task is constant struggle against oppression and constant struggle for new ways of living. All people must

be free to determine their

own

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

lives.

286

RADICAL THERAPIST

Intimacy and Oppression

We

are committed to programs of social change. Yet change in itself is not enough. We seek to transform the ways people relate to one another. We seek meaningful "intimate" relationships with others. We seek to end the inhuman manipulation and distancing that goes on now in our society, in which people are treated like things, sex and consumer objects. Liberation means people being people: nothing less. Because we need one another, a necessary part of our lives is involvement in intimate pairs, social

in intimate groups, in the solidarity of the

these relationships,

we can be

movement. In

ourselves, open, reaching

out to one another, free to love and be loved, to share,

grow Yet our very need for intimacy often involves us in further oppressive behavior. Our ideas of intimacy have been shaped by the mass media, by two centuries of romanticism, by stereotyped sex images. We must be aware to experience, to

.

.

.

how much our desire for intimacy represents a real human need, and how much it reflects a wish to withdraw from the world, to dominate and subjugate someone else, or to live out a myth. as

an

When

object,

intimacy means treating someone else sister, then

dehumanizing a brother or

intimacy is a cloak for oppression. The "intimacy" of a therapy relationship often rests on the subjugation of patient to therapist. The "intimacy" of marriage often rests on the subjugation of wife to husband. The "intimacy" of homosexual pairs often rests on the subjugation of one partner to the other. The "intimacy" of family life often rests on the subjugation of children to parents.

We are all potentially beautiful people. We can love cherish

what

is

and

beautiful about each other. In this sense,

all human relationships can be meaningful and enriching. Marriage, homosexual pairs, families, communes, work groups; all can lead to mutual respect, love, and growth. But all can also lead to division, carping, exploitation, de-

FURTHER CONCERNS

287

humanization, and oppression. The traditional institutions marriage, the into which many fall without thinking are the most oppressive. Their roots are in family

—

—

economic and social conditions. They serve to keep people in their place. The "intimacy" they so often engender is a destructive, grinding tension: people thrust upon one another, blaming, grasping, cutting, competing, historical

avoiding,

deceiving.

Where

children

are

present,

they

become pawns.

Much

of this today

is

due to our

society,

which enforces

competitive sex roles, subjugation, and battles for control. We need to be flexible with one another: to hold and to be held: to soothe and to be soothed. It is a flaw not to be able to lean on someone, just as it is a flaw not to be able

be leaned on. Intimacy can arise in groups of people working together, sharing tasks. Here "intimacy" is "solidarity." Intimacy can arise in pair relationships, without exploitation, when each partner is able to be free; when there is mutual esteem and respect. Intimacy can arise in families, too, when each family member is cared for as a human being, not as a thing. Relationships between the sexes today are severely strained by men's constant attempts to dominate and deto

humanize women: to treat them as things and objects. Women will no longer tolerate this indignity. Some women will withdraw from men completely. Some men will withdraw from women completely, too. Some people will form heterosexual pairs; others, homosexual ones. Some people

None of None is more "desirable" than the others. We are who we are. We will do what we do. Our task is to reach human relationships and activities will live in collectives; others will stay in families.

these alternatives

is

"sick."

which help us grow and realize our potential, while at the same time being involved in the struggle for social change. A search for "intimacy" and "self-realization" which avoids the need for wholesale social revolution in this country is senseless and co-opted. But a drive for revolution which ignores intimacy and solidarity between people

288

RADICAL THERAPIST

inhuman

as the society it wishes to change. Let us end oppression while retaining our humanity: otherwise our struggle is empty.

is

as

strive to

End

sexism!

Power

End

all

oppression!

to the people!

One and Many Focusing on materialistic causes of people's emotional therapy encourages collective as well as

distress, a radical

individual solutions.

We

don't ignore personal factors the

way current therapy ignores social and political factors; we see them in a social perspective. To forget the people who are "the people" would be dehumanizing brothers and sisters.

Our society has created widespread alienation: from work, from others, and from ourselves. We are exposed to Constant oppression, sex-role myths, propagandist media, and psychic brutality. All this has an effect on us. External causes produce inner responses. As Fanon points out, we become people whose emotions are traumatized: people who are fearful, who are paranoid, who cannot trust, who fear asserting themselves. The system and we ourselves have messed each other up as whole people. For this reason, dealing with "individual" solutions is important. We need to combat oppression on all levels. We can raise awareness and group together, working toward collective action. We can also help one another regain our humanity, our trust, our spontaneity, our assertiveness, our creativity, our playfulness, our love. There's no point to being drained and crippled by emotional suffering. Helping each other does not cool us out: it makes us more able to work together. Radical therapy can be helping a depressed woman realize she's angry and oppressed, not depressed. It can be helping a shy man say what he thinks, act on his feelings, and become a better activist. It can be encouraging people's esteem of their brothers and sisters, and developing their capacity to be honest and open.

— 289

FURTHER CONCERNS

A new society

is

built

on people and concrete

acts,

abstractions. Just as a populous country can avoid

not

hunger

exploitative use of land and food, so attack people's oppressing people by eliminating sexist, racist, and elitist attitudes and the institutions which

by eliminating the

we can

foster them.

Some emotional problems

whatever the we mess one another up even when we try not to. But we can deal with such problems in an open, collective way, not denigrating, labeling, or further oppressing one another. We don't need therapy as a means of social control. We need it as an approach to living together. People have different emotional and mental capacities. Those with lesser capacities than others should still be encouraged to their fullest capacity; no one should be humiliated by being told he is a "retard" or by being stashed away in an institution. Our community can respect social system.

We

will

persist,

are imperfect creatures, and

who we are. "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." The maxim remains a true guideline.

us for

On

Practice

come from? Do they fall from they spring innately from our minds? No. from social practice and from it alone."

"Where do the sky? No.

They come Mao.

correct ideas

Do

We

can talk about radical therapy until we are blue in But until we translate our talk into action, we are just mouth droolers. What kind of action depends on our situation and our goals. But that we must act is imperative. People keep asking us, "What is radical therapy?" They want to know our tenets and techniques, as if they could then "learn" them. It doesn't work that way. Radical therapy isn't some other "kind" of therapy. We don't the face.

present ourselves at the radical radish

sample and

between the

taste.

left

end of the serving table, a and canapes, for people to

olives

Radical therapy

is

a

life-style. It's

not

290

RADICAL THERAPIST

what a therapist does; and how she/he lives.

just

Life style

is

who and what

she/he

is

crucial.

Radical therapy

community to

it's

is

any of the following: organizing a

way it's run; helping a brother or sister through a crisis; rooting out our own chauvinism and mercilessly exposing it in others; focusing on the social dimensions of oppression and not on "inseize control of the

trapsychic" depression, fear, anger, and so on; organizing against the war, against polluting industries, against racist practice; developing a political/therapy center for young people; teaching students psychology lie it is; refusing to

be manipulated and co-opted by the sweet sucky pigs who heap praise on your head like garbage while they root their snouts in your guts. Life style

is

What kind and rakes

in

crucial.

of radical therapist

sits

in a private office

$50,000 a year from well-to-do patients?

No

kind.

What kind of radical therapist talks radical politics but remains ensconced in a university setting? That question is harder to answer. It becomes a matter of risk and commitment. Everyone needs money for food and shelter, for satisfying basic needs, and for smokes and music. Of course. Yet we begin to wonder if "radical" professors have any effect in a university, if their own lives stay bound by research,

publishing "scholarly" articles, and being dominated by university administrators. Certainly, if teacher/therapists

can radicalize students, show them alternatives, open their minds, and help them through crises, then they are doing good work. But we sometimes wonder if teacher/therapists are not socially sanctioned clowns at times. They entertain the students for a while: and then the students go on into nice jobs in the system.

who

is not engaged a fraud. Without participating in radical social action, she/he cannot feel the texture, nor the taste, nor the smarting of social practice.

If

the therapist

stays in a university

in radical action, then

she/he

is

FURTHER CONCERNS

291

Liberate the universities, yes. Let's see

it.

But

let's

see

it.

We encourage the growth of free universities everywhere. We encourage the liberation of universities everywhere. But liberated universities without liberated teachers will be nothing liberated in the very ways they live

—

—

new.

The

challenge of becoming involved in action projects

faces each of us.

Internal Tactics

Too much

is rhetoric, not grounded in real on specific tasks. Talking about "making the revolution" is not specific:

of our talk

action. Let's focus

it is

a

way

of passing time. Organizing a demonstration,

center, keeping a commune viable, teaching a course in new ideas, attacking our own chauvinism: these concrete acts which can change the way

establishing a rap

things are.

Working on concrete tasks, we will encounter familiar enemies within ourselves: (1) a cult of competition and power, which dehumanizes, our sisters and brothers by making them objects to be manipulated; (2) a cult of "but we're all equal," which cuts down genuine leaders in the name of community and which allows everyone's opinion thus paralyzing us; (3) a cult of "lefter to be "right" than thou," which attacks others' genuine actions with bullshit rhetoric; and (4) a cult of assuming we're always

—

right.

People

who

talk

without doing

are

shouldn't listen to them. When we disagree among friends,

dangerous;

we can

settle

we the

by talking things out, not by denunciation, ostracism, and putsches. The latter weakens us. Our main

issues

struggle

is

in changing this society, not in labeling or

attacking our friends.

The only

test of

our ideas' validity

social context. That's the arena.

is if

they'll

work, in a

RADICAL THERAPIST

292

time to time we'll feel tired and despondent, foolish and frustrated. But we can groove on the struggle; we can groove on one another. The challenge is hard, but

From

the struggle

is

invigorating.

VENCEREMOS!

And we

shall win.

Ballantine Books in Psychology

Transactional Analysis Eric Berne,

Dr. Berne

in

Psychotherapy

M.D.

first

outlined the principles of transactional

analysis in this book.

Now

a classic in the

The Structure and Dynamics

field.

of Organiza-

tions and Groups Eric Berne, M.D. Based on the principles of transactional analysis, this book offers a systematic framework for the therapy of "ailing" groups and organizations. A "bold and creative" book.

Games Alcoholics Play Claude Steiner

With ism

is

a preface by Eric Berne, this

not a disease and

as a "sick"

tells

why

book claims

alcohol-

treating an alcoholic

man may do him more harm

than good.

To order by mail, send price of book(s) plus 25(J per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Please allow three weeks for delivery.

The

Politics of

Experience R. D. Laing Given tlpe conditions of contemporary civilization how can one claim that the "normal" man is sane? In this famous book, a young British psychiatrist attacks the Establishment assumptions about "normality" with a radical and challenging view of the

mental sickness built into our society

.

.

.

"He has let us know. He has told us in such a way that we can not disregard it. ... He speaks to no one Los Angeles Free Press but you and me."

—

A BALLANTINE BOOK

To order by mail, send 950 per book plus 250 per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Please allow three weeks for delivery.

$.95

[101

PSYCHOLOGY!

A GROWING NUMBER OF PSYCHOTHERAPISTS

^^

BELIEVE:

the midst of a society tormented by war, racism and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as 'disIn

turbed' those

and

who

press towards

it. Concerned with maintaining therapy avoids moving towards more meaningful for all people.

justifying current practices,

making

life

"Therapists by

what we have been taught is increasdestructive. Our notions of therapy are obsolete: elitist, male-centered, and obsessional. Our modes of practice are often racist and exploitive. The therapist in this ingly irrelevant,

training,

and even

society is safe: he lives near the top of the heap, pursuing moneyed comforts, influence and prestige, while the rest of thee society is racked by violence and war. He buys land and boats while others die in the streets. Often he seems unaware of the

bias he perpetuates or the oppression he enacts in the name o ; 'liberation.' Expert as he may be at analyzing intrapersonal forces, he

is

often ignorant about forces controlling the larger

society in which he lives.

^^ Therapy control.

We

today has become a commodity, a means of social reject such an approach to people's distress. We

reject the pleasant careers with

which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers towards such change. But to be \rue instruments of change, therapy and therapists must be liberated from their own forms of oppression.

^^

—from

the Manifesto of The Radical Therapist

THE RADICAL COLLECTIVE: David Bryan, Linda Bryan, Michael Galan, Michael Glenn, Sara Glenn. They have moved from Minot, N.D., to Cambridge, Mass.

JEROME AGEL: Author

of U. S. HISTORY NOT TAUGHT IN U. S. SCHOOLS and THE MAKING OF KUBRICK'S 2001 Co-author of INFORMATION AS POWER (with Herman Kahn) and SEEM TO BE A VERB (with Buckminster Fuller). Producer of THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE and WAR AND PEACE IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE (with Marshall McLuhan) and THE MANY WORLDS OF HUMPHRY .

I

OSMOND.