A stunning tale of therapy's betrayal of a generation. Here is the riveting account of The Center for Feeling Therapy. Founded in Los Angeles in 1971 by a group of dissidents from Arthur Janov's Primal Institute, by 1980 patients had begun to file charges of physical and sexual abuse with authorities. Mithers takes readers from the cult's hopeful beginning to its explosive ending.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Calling psychology a "perfect window to a country's soul," freelance journalist Mithers documents the little-known but sorry story of Feeling Therapy, a psychotherapeutic movement whose original aim, following Arthur Janov's Primal Scream theories, was to deal with complaints of "numbness." Feeling Therapy was an outgrowth of the human potential movement that swept the nation in the early 1970s, and its charismatic leaders, Joe Hart and Riggs Corriere, built their success on the proposition that people had become estranged from their real selves. Their cure was to strip away layers of socialization and defenses, until patients were as unintellectual and "open" as children. The techniques they used--brutal, nasty and protracted--relied on amateur therapists to inflict feelings of worthlessness on the mainly young patients who moved into the Center in L.A., becoming part of a new "family." When the Center closed in 1980 amid multiple lawsuits, the judges in the cases ruled that the plaintiffs (who realized some $7 million in judgments) had been the victims of an abusive cult, whose leaders were motivated by greed and the quest for personal power. Hart was stripped of his license to practice psychology; Corriere turned to corporate counseling. Mithers had access to diaries, letters and court papers and interviewed many of the patients, who give graphic accounts of their treatments. As the documentation of a seemingly benign movement gone awry, this expose is engrossing.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This book chronicles the rise and fall of a psychological movement that evolved throughout the 1970s into a cultlike community. The Center for Feeling Therapy was started in Los Angeles after Joe Hart, a psychology professor, and his teaching assistant, Richard Corriere, broke from Arthur Janov's Primal Institute in 1971. Using highly effective techniques that captors sometimes use on hostages, the two gained a wide following of troubled young people who became totally dependent on therapy and their therapists. Forced to live and work together with little outside contact, the patients developed more and more distorted views, eventually becoming tools to support the egos and pocketbooks of the therapists. This highly readable account does an excellent job of describing a therapy out of control and should be popular in both public and academic libraries.
- Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
frightening!,
By Daniel Mackler (on the road) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Therapy Gone Mad: The True Story of Hundreds of Patients and a Generation Betrayed (Hardcover)
This book was chilling, and I give it a full two thumbs up for being so clear, thought out, well-researched and well-presented. It gave a play-by-play account of how a cult is created, and how people in need of healing are sucked into it...and trade their lives away for membership in it. It is also a beautiful example of how compelling such cult life is, and shows some of the clear benefits - despite the horrors - of being in such a world: the community, protection, camaraderie, agreement with a firm point of view. These are things we all want and strive for in our own ways - but god, how much these people had to sacrifice to achieve it. They sacrificed themselves and their self-respect...and also built their world on a house of cards. Mild criticism: I think author could have gone deeper with the book had she further explored the parallel relationship between the cult dynamics and the dynamics of its members' abusive families of origin (as does Alice Miller in For Your Own Good). I think all therapy - and all adult relationships - entails the risk of such a non-healing re-creation, essentially just acting out, but what's most frightening is when therapists, like those in this book, not only participate in it...but NURTURE IT for their own benefits. Other criticism: the book was too long-winded. I could have happily read a condensed version of this book and gotten just as much out of it. 400+ pages was just too much, yet due to the book's ever-changing nature, it was a tough one to skim.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Devastating,
By BodyFocus "BodyFocus" (New York) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Therapy Gone Mad: The True Story of Hundreds of Patients and a Generation Betrayed (Hardcover)
This book is extremely well written. Not only was I completely absorbed and always wanting to find out what happened next, but I found myself almost "living" what these poor people went through in the hands of such deluded and destructive "therapists". The author brings the material so much to life, that it is easy to feel the pain, confusion and devastation the "patients" went through. Particularly sad are the final chapters of the book, in which the patients come to realize what has been done to them: the lies they have been told, the abuse they have suffered, and the years that have been wasted. It takes some of them quite a while to reach this stage, after a blind sort of wading and groping through layers of disbelief and confusion. A very sobering, deep, and painful account.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a great book,
By slashcart (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Therapy Gone Mad: The True Story of Hundreds of Patients and a Generation Betrayed (Hardcover)
This was a GREAT book.
The book was carefully researched, yet gripping to read. It was detailed and exhaustive, yet compellingly written. It was long and informative, yet it was a real page-turner -- I couldn't put it down. In short, it combines many elements which are rarely found together. Mithers is a true journalist. She treats her subject with balance, care, and professionalism; but she still manages to be engaging.
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