Dedicated to all those whose "potential" was too "unique" to be recognized by Hyde School.
Excerpts of this old
TIME piece (timepiece?) were originally posted by Inculcated in the
Dr. Dan Casriel "A scream away from happiness" thread, and the
LGATs in the work place thread. Here is the article in its entirety:
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TIME.comHuman Potential: The Revolution in FeelingMonday, Nov. 09, 1970IN an Evanston, Ill., high school, students of English Teacher Thomas Klein shrouded themselves in bed sheets and crawled blindly around the floor. At a body-movement session in Beverly Hills, Calif., participants took turns pummeling a sofa pillow with feral ferocity. From a four-story midtown Manhattan brownstone, the sound of screaming can be heard all day long. It comes from patients of Psychiatrist Daniel Casriel, who believes that such release is therapeutic. In Escondido, Calif., a group of naked men and women, utter strangers, step into what their leader, Beverly Hills Psychologist Paul Bindrim, calls a "womb pool"—a warm Jacuzzi bath. They are permitted to hug and kiss each other, but intercourse is out.
To many Americans, these activities typify a leaderless, formless and wildly eclectic movement that is variously called sensitivity training, encounter, "therapy for normals," the bod biz, or the acidless trip. Such terms merely describe the more sensational parts of a whole that is coming to be known as the human potentials movement—a quest conducted in hundreds of ways and places, to redefine and enrich the spirit of social man.
To reach man's unawakened resources, the movement focuses on the actions and interactions of individuals in a group. In this, it has borrowed freely from psychology's past, from such extenders of Freudian theory as Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan, who realized that no individual can be defined, and no emotional disorder healed, without an examination of the interchange between one man and all the others in his life. Society itself is defined by the group. The movement's exponents argue that by expanding the individual's self-awareness and sense of well-being within the group, a new feeling of community develops that strengthens both the individual and the group.
Weekend Marathon. The human potentials movement has already touched the major social institutions: church, factory, school and state. In a study for the Carnegie Corporation, Donald H. Clark, associate professor of education at New York's City University, reports that the movement has permeated every level of education, from kindergarten to graduate school and beyond. Encounter sessions or T (for training) groups have been held, sometimes as parts of the curriculum, in dozens of colleges and universities, among them Harvard, Columbia, Boston University and the New School for Social Research. Big business has enlisted its employees in human potentials centers in ever increasing numbers, and many companies now operate programs of their own. In some, white employees don blackface, black employees whiteface, presumably to encourage the feeling that the difference in the races is, after all, only skin-deep.
Aided by widespread publicity, including the movie
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Jane Howard's bestseller,
Please Touch, the movement is spreading explosively. Two years ago, when California's Esalen Institute first sought to export its own brand of the new gospel east, 90 curious New Yorkers showed up for a five-day encounter group in Manhattan. A similar event last year drew 850; last April, 6,000. Since January 1969, when Donald Clark counted 37 "growth centers"—established sites for the development of human or group potentials—the census has risen past 100.
To Esalen in San Francisco and Big Sur, the institute's beautiful Pacific retreat south of Carmel, come 25,000 people a year—and if the pilgrim is turned away there, he can find similar sanctuaries in San Diego (Kairos), New York (Aureon, Anthos, GROW), Chicago (Oasis), Houston (Espiritu), Austin, Texas (Laos House), Washington, D.C. (Quest), Decatur, Ga. (Adanta), Calais, Vt. (Sky Farm Institute), and scores of other communities. The groups can vary in size from half a dozen friends meeting in a big-city apartment to hundreds and even thousands of complete strangers at a psychological convention. The gamut is as wide as the cost, which can run anywhere from $30 or less for a weekend marathon encounter session in a church basement (see box page 56) to $2,100 for a seven-week training program at the National Training Laboratories.
Even though the movement's advocates deny that it is therapy, many people visit the new growth centers or attend informal group sessions in quest of precisely that. The American Psychiatric Association estimates that in California, more troubled individuals already seek help from the human potentials movement than from "traditional sources of psychotherapy." Yet the human potentials group sessions are largely valueless, and even dangerous, for the severely disturbed. Psychologist Carl Rogers, one of the movement's charter members, and many others consider it a learning experience for "normals" rather than a therapeutic experience for the sick—who are too engrossed in their own emotions fully to feel another's.
Targets of Criticism. Psychologist Rogers calls the new group movement "the most significant social invention of this century." It may not be quite that, but even the American Psychiatric Association has bestowed guarded approval in a 27-page task-force report: "The intensive group experience is intrinsically neither good nor bad ... If properly harnessed, however, the experience may be a valuable adjunct" to psychotherapy.
Critics have accused the movement of everything from Communist-style brainwashing to sedition. Dr. Joseph T. English, formerly head of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, thinks that it has "been oversold to an unaware public." U.S. Representative John R. Rarick of Louisiana, its most voluble enemy, has filled pages of the Congressional Record with unrestrained rhetoric: "Organized thought control and behavior programming ... a perversion of group therapy that makes healthy minds sick . . . obvious degeneracy."
One of the more frequent targets of this criticism is the Esalen Institute, the creation of two Stanford psychology graduates, Michael Murphy and Richard Price. In a San Francisco ashram, or Hindu retreat, where Murphy spent eight meditative years and was later joined by Price, the two dreamed of a university without academic trappings, which would combine the best of Western humanistic psychology and Eastern thought.
A Social Oasis. Murphy's father left him a 60-acre tract on Big Sur, and in 1962, Esalen Institute opened. "We only knew that a forum was needed for all these new ideas," Murphy said. "We had no idea where it would all lead to. We didn't care." The statement is characteristic of the part of the human potentials movement that Esalen represents. It and its many imitators are analogous to the so-called "free university," which eliminates the traditional boundaries between students and faculty, one academic discipline and another, the cognitive (knowing) process and the affective (feeling) process.
The encounter group, as it evolved at Esalen, is first of all a vehicle to provide an intense emotional experience. It is usually kept small enough—half a dozen to 20 members—to generate intimate response. Its focus is on the "here and now," on what the group members experience as they sit, lie or touch together. It demands complete openness, honesty and cooperation. As described by the American Psychiatric Association, the encounter group is "a social oasis in which societal norms are explicitly shed. No longer must facades of adequacy, competence, self-sufficiency be borne." Indeed, just the opposite kind of behavior is encouraged. "The group offers intimacy, albeit sometimes a pseudo intimacy—an instant and unreal form of closeness . . . one which has no commitment to permanence."
All of this applies to Esalen at Big Sur. The scene itself inspires strong emotions: a verdant reach of craggy coastline dropping precipitously into the Pacific. A row of small rustic bungalows that house Big Sur's 60 "seminarians"—its own name for clients—is dominated by the main lodge. Other emotions, some of them hostile to Esalen, have been aroused by the institute's most notorious and overpublicized attraction: its hot sulphur baths, where seminarians of both sexes soak blissfully in the nude during breaks in their sessions.
Shocking Experience. Esalen's curriculum, like that of most human growth centers, is wide. The fall 1970 catalogue offers a smorgasbord of workshops, labs and seminars, among them group sessions for millionaires ("On Being Rich"), couples, divorcees and dentists ("The manner in which the professional approaches his patients and practice is, in general, a reflection of the way he approaches life").
There are also numerous workshops in Gestalt therapy, an approach devised by the late German Psychiatrist Frederick S. Perls. One of the newest and most rebellious branches of psychology, Gestalt theory seeks to celebrate man's freedom, uniqueness and potential. This is markedly different from conditioning his behavior, after the manner of B.F. Skinner and other behaviorists, who argue that man is infinitely malleable, or from probing his subconscious and his past, like Freud. The "here and now," according to Perls, is all that matters; the mind and body are inseparably one; converts are commanded to "lose your mind and come to your senses." This is implied by the very word Gestalt, which means configuration, or the whole, and which, as applied in therapy, insists on the unity of mind and body. Hence it places great emphasis on the body as a part of the whole; and it is this emphasis, widely practiced by human potentials groups, that has helped earn the movement a reputation for being anti-intellectual. The accusation is not entirely true, but a casual visitor to Esalen could be forgiven for believing it.
To the uninitiated, an Esalen encounter group can be a shocking experience. As TIME'S Andrea Svedberg, who herself attended one, reports: "People touch, hold hands, kiss, throw each other up in the air, fight, use all the dirty words, tell each other cruel truths. Every aspect of so-called proper behavior is discarded. Every emotion is out in the open—everybody's property." Feelings are not spared. In time, the group develops a tribal loyalty, as fiercely protective as it is critical.
Over the years, Esalen has evolved, mostly by trial and error, dozens of ways by which group members can learn to communicate with their bodies rather than with their minds. Each procedure has its purpose. When, for instance, the spirits of some grouper noticeably sag, he may be rocked tenderly in the air on the hands of the others. Tears are a summons to "cradle": the moist-eyed one is warmly and multiply embraced. An extension of cradling is the hero sandwich: the whole group, often as many as 35 persons, cuddle together in a formation rather like the football huddle, but far more intimate. Esalen has also elevated massage to something of an art. The body is kneaded, not gently, from neck to foot; to some seminarians, the massage becomes an emotional bath—what insiders call a "peak experience."
Exciting Feedback. All such exercises are calculated to awaken in the grouper a new awareness of and respect for the purely physical side of his being. In a way, it is an extension of the flush of well-being that is one of the rewards of exercise, an attempt to recruit all of the senses—not just the mind—into the act of living.
Although no one man dominates the human potentials movement, its contemporary origins can be traced to the late psychologist Kurt Lewin, who fled to the U.S. from Nazi Germany in 1933. With him he brought a fascination with the dynamics of the group, society's basic unit. Lewin's work convinced him that no amount of telling people what to do—the standard educational approach—could be half so instructive as letting them find out for themselves.
It was this principle that, by accident, gave rise to the National Training Laboratories, the first serious entrant in the human potentials movement. In 1946, the Connecticut Interracial Commission sought Lewin's advice in solving the state's interracial problem. With three colleagues, Lewin brought black and white leaders together to discuss their differences.
But because of Lewin's interest in the dynamics of group behavior, he also appointed four observers, with instructions to record their comments after each meeting: how things went, why things went wrong, etc. The conferees insisted that they be allowed to participate in these postmortems. "What happened was that they found the feedback more exciting than the actual event—the conference," says Leland Bradford, former executive director of N.T.L.
At its Maine retreat, opened in 1947, the N.T.L. began applying the feedback process to what has become an entirely new educational approach: the T group. Uninstructed and agendaless, the group begins to coalesce in a highly charged emotional atmosphere. At first, group members are reserved, but eventually they remove their social masks. Says Bradford: "People come as lonely people—we're all lonely people—and find they can finally share with somebody. One statement I've heard 300 or 400 times from T-group members is, 'You know, I know you people better than people I've worked with for 30 years.' "
Intense Encounter. T groups are now conducted internationally by 600 N.T.L.-trained leaders and are designed to improve corporations, government agencies, churches and other institutions. They differ from encounter groups in that they tend to be less emotional, place more reliance on verbal than on nonverbal communication, and are less concerned with the individuals' growth per se than with his development within his group. T groups improve relationships within organizations by trading what the late Douglas McGregor of M.I.T. called management's "X" approach (do as I say) for the "Y" approach (join with me so that we can work things out together). Obviously, that does not and cannot make equals of the boss and the factory hand; if that is the unrealistic goal, the "Y" approach will fail. But by making the president and the factory hand more aware of each other it can vastly improve the employee's sense of his own value and place.
The pervasiveness of the human potentials movement is demonstrated by the inroads it has made even in relatively conservative cities like Cincinnati, where T groups and encounter groups have become an integral part of business and civic activities. Procter & Gamble and Federated Stores, for example, both use human potentials groups to increase the effectiveness and morale of their staffs. After hours, some of the employees, inspired by their office training, conduct private encounter groups of their own. Methodist and. Episcopal church leaders regularly schedule group training sessions for their laity, and the University of Cincinnati sponsors sensitivity groups both to improve the workings of its own departments and to aid the community at large. Even the police department is involved. Next month new recruits will be given 40 hours of group sensitivity training to give them a better understanding of the problems and ways of the city's minorities. N.T.L.'s approach represents what might be called the conservative end of the human potentials movement. At the other, or liberal end are Esalen and all its imitators and derivatives. Somewhere in between lies the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, Calif., a loose confederation of 53 psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, educators, clergymen and journalists.
Its informal objective might be described as that of the movement's interpreter to those who have heard of it and want to know more.
The very eclecticism of the human potentials movement has brought it criticism even from within its own ranks. Robert Driver, founder and operator of Kairos, San Diego's human growth center, has compared it to "a tree which is growing too fast without putting down proper roots." The movement also attracts a great many persons who join it for the wrong reasons: "Already," says Driver, "we see some growth experiences that are used merely to blow out the tubes every six months or so."
Re-entry Problem. There is genuine concern as well at the lack of follow-up procedures to determine the long-term effect of the group experiences. Says Psychologist Richard Parson, an Esalen adviser, "All research shows that people have the most tremendous subjective reaction after it is over—as a rule, more than 80% say they are overwhelmingly responsive. But the objective results—testing—show virtually no lasting effects. It is difficult to show as much as a 5% change in anybody even after the most intense encounter." The movement admits the need to learn why the benefits appear to be short-lived. But follow-up procedures cost big money and the movement is still a deficit operation. This year, for example, Esalen broke even for the first time since its gates opened in 1962.
There are more disturbing aspects of the proliferating group sessions. Among some 200 Stanford University undergraduates exposed to a wide variety of personal growth workshop experiences, the overall "casualty rate" —those who suffered psychological impairment—was 8%. Perhaps even more significant was the discovery that a so-called charismatic leader, or trainer, within the movement produced a casualty rate of 14%. Psychiatrist Louis A. Gottschalk of the University of California, after participating in one encounter group of eleven, diagnosed "one borderline acute psychotic withdrawal reaction" and "two severe emotional breakdowns with acute anxiety" within that group. Irving D. Yalom, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Task Force on encounter groups, reports that after one T group session 10% to 15% of the members consulted a resident psychiatrist for such adverse responses as anxiety, depression, agitation and insomnia.
The explanation could lie in the possibility that some leaders themselves may desperately need what they preach. At most growth centers, anyone can join the movement as a trainer with little experience. He learns on the job. Many such trainers are unequipped to recognize the casualties they produce. Their approach tends to be simplistic. "If expression of feelings is good," says the A.P.A. report sarcastically, "then total expression—hitting, touching, feeling, kissing and fornication—must be better."
The movement is also well aware of what it calls the "reentry problem." Writes Jane Howard in
Please Touch, the result of a year's participation in the human potentials movement: "Just as it is hard to be sober when nobody else is, I found what thousands of other veterans of groups have found: that it is hard to re-enter 'back-home' reality after the intoxicating communion of a successful encounter or T group." Sometimes recognition that the world has not changed is more than the returning grouper's new sensory awareness can take ... in which case he either turns into a "T-group bum," endlessly circuiting the growth centers, or into a copout. An alarming number of such refugees from reality leave their wives, families, jobs and communities.
Youth's Disaffection. The dangers are real. But the human potentials movement cannot be dismissed as a passing fad. "There is increasing concern for the humanization of organizations," says Dr. Vladimir Dupre, executive director of N.T.L., "an increasing desire by people to feel more connected with each other, to act on their own environment rather than feeling acted upon."
In education, where man's affective aspect is largely overlooked, the movement is probing a long-neglected area. Max Birnbaum, associate professor of human relations at Boston University, who believes that this neglect is in large part responsible for the counterculture subscribed to by the younger generation, feels that the answer to youth's disaffection might lie in the new movement. He sees the day when the learning experience will involve a group of peers, "in contrast to the traditional classroom, with the teacher as an authority figure and the students as charges." This model is already taking shape in many of the human potentials movement's group sessions.
It is too soon to assess the true value of the movement. According to Donald Clark, it does "not lead to old answers but to new puzzles, new problems, new models of experience, new perspectives, and subsequently may provide a possible—though not guaranteed—footing from which one may reach for new answers and new skills."
© 2009 Time Inc.