Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture by Lucas Richert

A historical analysis argues that the 1970s were a transformative decade for mental health, when radical ideas either matured, faded, or became mainstream. The book examines intersecting stories—from the Vietnam War to Dianetics to the DSM—to illustrate how psychiatry reached a confusing crossroads as psychoanalysis came under attack from biological psychiatry, feminists, and patient activists. It covers the Radical Caucus of the American Psychiatric Association, women's health activists challenging doctor-patient hierarchies, R. D. Laing's attack on schizophrenia, the Insane Liberation Front, parapsychology research at elite universities, and underground LSD therapy. The author concludes that seventies radicalism left a lasting impression on psychiatry and psychology that continues today.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Reviewed by: Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture by Lucas Richert Wendy Kline Lucas Richert. Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2019. 210 pp. Ill. $26.95 (978-0-262-04282-6). Historians Beth Bailey and David Farber once referred to the 1970s as "our strangest decade." Unlike scholarship on the 1960s, they argue, "historians have been slow to put the 1970s into the narrative of American history."1 The challenge for historians, another scholar notes, lies in "figuring out how to take Seventies culture seriously."2 Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture offers a refreshing and important contribution to our understanding of the 1970s from the perspective of mental health. "These were explosive times," notes author Lucas Richert, who sees the 1970s as a "shakeout moment in which radical ideas either matured, faded away, or became mainstream" (p. 7). (His book title, "Break on Through," is a reference to the Doors song written by Jim Morrison, interested in shaking things up back in 1967.) The narrative tackles everything from the Vietnam War to Dianetics to the DSM, offering a series of "intersecting stories" to illustrate the changing landscape of mental health diagnosis and treatment. Indeed, it is the juxtaposition of these "intersecting stories" that makes this a valuable and entertaining study. Richert strives to "unpack the idea of mental health radicalism" by situating various new treatments and theories within the wider context of 1970s culture (p. 3). He provides us with a wide array of influential thinkers who challenged assumptions about behavior and mental health. Psychiatry was at a "confusing crossroad," as psychoanalysis came under attack by supporters of biological psychiatry (interested in psychopharmacological treatment), as well as by feminists and patient activists who viewed psychiatric treatment as a form of social control (p. 7). Even within the ranks of psychiatrists, some of the more radical members pushed for change. The Radical Caucus of the members of the American Psychiatric Association, formed in 1969, urged mental health professionals not to hide "behind the couch," demanding new leadership and a new vision (including renouncing the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder; p. 38). Out of these demands came new ideas, policies, and practices that tapped into other forms of radicalism of the day. Women's health activists, for example, demanded a complete restructuring of the doctor/patient relationship, challenging assumptions about gender, power, and hierarchy. If sexism was socially constructed, perhaps mental illness was too, a claim taken on by R. D. Laing in his attack on schizophrenia and promoted by groups such as the Insane Liberation Front. Richert takes us beyond some of these more well-known subjects and stories to explore more far-reaching claims about the mind. The "science" of parapsychology enjoyed a brief heyday in the 1970s, marked by the emergence of organizations such as the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine, The Institute of [End Page 431] Parascience, and the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research. Parapsychology labs researched ESP and reincarnation at UCLA, Duke, Princeton, and other elite universities before receiving pushback from skeptical scientists. LSD therapy, though largely driven underground by the 1970s, continued to be promoted by countercultural psychiatrists such as R. D. Laing, who had developed a huge cult following in the United States ("it's like trying to get in to see the Rolling Stones!" a college student remarked of the crowd awaiting Laing in 1972).3 Richert's sampling of seventies organizations, events, and thinkers involved in studies of the mind, while fascinating, raises questions about what gets left out. We learn about selected alternative therapies emerging in this decade, for example, but many are not included, and some connections are left unexplored (such as those between the home birth movement and psychedelics). Nonetheless, Break on Through is a welcome addition to the growing list of studies that insist we take the 1970s seriously. In his Afterword, Richert reminds us that seventies radicalism "left a lasting impression" on psychiatry and psychology (p. 150), one that continues with us today. Wendy Kline Purdue University Footnotes 1. Beth Bailey and David Farber, eds., America in the Seventies (Lawrence...