ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

No pain, no gain? Countering encounter groups in the 1960s and 70s (Ulrich Koch, GWU)

• In Event: Taming Psychotherapy: From Radical Experiment to Standards of Practice (1960-2000)

English Abstract

In 1969 the American Psychiatric Association convened a task force to assess the relevance, potential dangers, but also promises of what had become known as encounter groups. “Encounter” was a catch-all term for a wide range of quasi-therapeutic group methods. These intense, short-term group experiences were often led by nonprofessionals, or had no formal leader at all, and sought to instigate personal growth. They were also immensely popular. In this talk, I will place the task force’s efforts within the broader context of the political and cultural backlash against the encounter group movement that gained momentum in the late 1960s. Once hailed by Carl Rogers as “perhaps the most important social invention of this century” and largely operating outside the various institutions involved in the provision of mental health care, encounter groups came under attack from multiple sides. Many clinicians distrusted their methods and aims, conservative politicians railed against the alleged spread of brainwashing techniques, and cultural critics condemned the practice as a sign of social decay (e.g., Herbert Marcuse, Sigmund Koch). The taskforce, chaired by psychiatrist and psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, sought to stake out a middle ground by defending “responsible” uses of such methods while highlighting the potential dangers and “adverse effects” of an unrestrained practice that often involved confrontational techniques. The systematic study of these iatrogenic harms, undertaken by Yalom and others in the early 1970s, helped redefine personal growth, how it can be obtained, and what makes group therapy “safe” for its participants.

Author

• Ulrich Koch, George Washington University