THE RADICAL THERAPIST by [Psychiatry] - 1970

Minot, North Dakota; Hillsdale, New York; Somerville, Massachusetts, 1970. Wraps. Very good. An extensive run of the influential journal and its subsequent incarnations: Rough Times and State and Mind. This collection consists of 37 issues: Volume 1, Number 2, 5, 6; Volume 2, Number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Volume 3, Number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Volume 4, Number 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Volume 5, Number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; Volume 6, Number 2, 3, 4*; Volume 7, Number 1, 2, 3; *Volume 6, Number 4 and Volume 7, Number 1 are combined in a double issue. The Radical Therapist took shape in the winter of 1969, in Minot, North Dakota, the product of three officers in the U.S. Air Force Regional Hospital. Their manifesto promised that the journal would provide a needed forum for all people working in the therapy fields; work to liberate therapy, therapists and others from backwards ideology; help develop new training programs; encourage the elaboration of a new psychology of men and women, as well as a new concept of family and community life; foster the development of more responsive therapy programs under client control; encourage new techniques; and confront the various ways American society uses mental health institutions to oppress various people. Highly critical of the therapy "establishment" and its practices, The Radical Therapist outlined a "radical" approach to the ways therapy could be used instead. It enthusiastically promoted women's liberation and gay liberation, and critically examined how therapy ideology and practice were alleged to contribute to sexist and homophobic oppression, and to the oppression and abuse of mental patients. It also spoke out against the Vietnam War, racism, and the greed of consumerist society, and it was an early supporter of the struggle of mental patients for their rights. Early issues of The Radical Therapist include a number of important articles, including "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" by Anne Koedt, "The Personal is Political" by Carol Hanish, "Prison Psychiatry" by Howard Levy, "Gay Liberation Manifesto" by Carl Wittman, and "Living with Other Women" by Rita Mae Brown, all present here. This collection also includes the "Special Berkeley Issue" (Volume 2, Number 3), which is entirely devoted to articles from the Radical Psychiatry movement in Berkeley, California, among them Claude Steiner's "Radical Psychiatry Manifesto" and "Radical Psychiatry and Transactional Analysis in Women's Groups" by Hogie Wyckoff. In an attempt to expand its audience beyond mental health professionals, The Radical Therapist changed its name to Rough Times in April 1972. The journal rechristened itself State and Mind in July 1976 as it increasingly integrated political matters. Later, State and Mind merged with Issues in Cooperation and Power to form Issues in Radical Therapy, which ceased publication in 1988. All issues through 1976 are tabloid format, offset printed on newsprint and folded once. The remaining issues are digest format, offset printed on newsprint and bound with staples. There is some general toning and occasional minor edgewear. The ink stamp of Women's History Research appears on the front panel of the first issue in this run (Volume 1, Number 2). Several others bear the address of subscriber Leonard Roy Frank (1932-2015), a San Francisco human rights activist and psychiatric survivor. Overall, very good.