problems in Tucson, partially related to a visit
from my brother, who was 16 at the time and
hitchhiking across the United States to Mexico.
I felt responsible for my brother but couldn’t
help him because I wasn’t mature enough. I
became depressed and dropped out of school
before the end of my first semester.
When I returned to New York City in the
summer of 1973 I reentered psychotherapy with
a Sullivan Institute therapist. Ralph Klein had
referred me to Tina, a young woman in the new
Sullivan Institute training program. Tina had a
college degree, but not in psychology, and no
advanced training in psychotherapy other than
what she was receiving from the Sullivan
Institute training program.
Tina—Psychotherapy With a “Trainee”
I saw Tina for approximately seven years. She
was not a “warm and fuzzy” person. In fact, I
never knew whether she liked me or not. While
it is difficult for me to remember exactly how I
felt more than twenty-five years ago, I do
remember that I was intimidated by Tina—I
think it is safe to say that I was scared of her.
This fear resulted in my attempts to be a “good
patient” while I was in her practice. My desire
for Tina to think positively of me wasn’t only a
case of concern about my own issues coming to
the surface. It was also based on the fact that the
Sullivan Institute had certain expectations of its
patients and members.
With Tina, the first and main project in
psychotherapy was for me to “do my history.”
Doing this entailed me recounting my childhood
memories, bringing in family photos and other
memorabilia from my past, and then Tina
interpreting them. Much of this interpretation
involved casting both of my parents in a very
destructive light and suggesting that I break off
contact with them, which I did. My mother was
still a member of the Sullivan Institute
community.
When I first moved back to New York in the
summer of 1973, I had moved in with a friend
from the Cuba trip. We shared an apartment in
Park Slope, and I was beginning to make friends
in the neighborhood. Tina encouraged me to
move into a group apartment with other patients
of Sullivan Institute therapists. She believed
that this move would accelerate my
interpersonal development by allowing me to
work on my peer relationships, which for some
reason did not include the friends I had made in
Park Slope. Group apartments within the
Sullivan Institute community were almost all
same-sex arrangements. Based on Tina’s
recommendations, I moved into an apartment on
the upper west side of Manhattan with four other
women.
One important difference between my therapy
with Tina and my therapy with Ralph Klein was
that Tina was not a founder of, or in a position
of leadership in the community. She was a
member of the training program and, as such,
did not have complete autonomy in her
relationship with me. She took notes in the
sessions and presumably shared them with her
supervisors. Later in the course of my therapy,
Tina would call me with some orders that I
assume came from one of these supervisors.
I think that what I needed at this point in my
development was structure, in the sense that I
needed to go to college and to learn how to hold
a job, to make friends, and to create a support
system. I found all these things in the group.
My roommates were generally older than I was
and taught me a lot of the basic things that we all
need to learn to be independent adults. We all
supported each other emotionally, with some
exceptions. I was able to find work and to
support myself while I attended and did well in
college. I wasn’t ready for a long-term,
committed, romantic relationship.
Tina was very directive as a therapist, not so
different perhaps from many of the other
therapists in the Sullivan Institute but after
having heard from other patients of hers, I
believe that she was more heavy-handed than
many. Two specific instances of this
directiveness stand out. The first took place
when I was in college. I was studying the
writings of Karl Marx, and I had organized a
group of people who wanted to learn more about
Marx’s theories. I found a teacher for our group
through the Union of Radical Political
Economists, a relatively well-known group
among leftist scholars. Right before the first
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 47
from my brother, who was 16 at the time and
hitchhiking across the United States to Mexico.
I felt responsible for my brother but couldn’t
help him because I wasn’t mature enough. I
became depressed and dropped out of school
before the end of my first semester.
When I returned to New York City in the
summer of 1973 I reentered psychotherapy with
a Sullivan Institute therapist. Ralph Klein had
referred me to Tina, a young woman in the new
Sullivan Institute training program. Tina had a
college degree, but not in psychology, and no
advanced training in psychotherapy other than
what she was receiving from the Sullivan
Institute training program.
Tina—Psychotherapy With a “Trainee”
I saw Tina for approximately seven years. She
was not a “warm and fuzzy” person. In fact, I
never knew whether she liked me or not. While
it is difficult for me to remember exactly how I
felt more than twenty-five years ago, I do
remember that I was intimidated by Tina—I
think it is safe to say that I was scared of her.
This fear resulted in my attempts to be a “good
patient” while I was in her practice. My desire
for Tina to think positively of me wasn’t only a
case of concern about my own issues coming to
the surface. It was also based on the fact that the
Sullivan Institute had certain expectations of its
patients and members.
With Tina, the first and main project in
psychotherapy was for me to “do my history.”
Doing this entailed me recounting my childhood
memories, bringing in family photos and other
memorabilia from my past, and then Tina
interpreting them. Much of this interpretation
involved casting both of my parents in a very
destructive light and suggesting that I break off
contact with them, which I did. My mother was
still a member of the Sullivan Institute
community.
When I first moved back to New York in the
summer of 1973, I had moved in with a friend
from the Cuba trip. We shared an apartment in
Park Slope, and I was beginning to make friends
in the neighborhood. Tina encouraged me to
move into a group apartment with other patients
of Sullivan Institute therapists. She believed
that this move would accelerate my
interpersonal development by allowing me to
work on my peer relationships, which for some
reason did not include the friends I had made in
Park Slope. Group apartments within the
Sullivan Institute community were almost all
same-sex arrangements. Based on Tina’s
recommendations, I moved into an apartment on
the upper west side of Manhattan with four other
women.
One important difference between my therapy
with Tina and my therapy with Ralph Klein was
that Tina was not a founder of, or in a position
of leadership in the community. She was a
member of the training program and, as such,
did not have complete autonomy in her
relationship with me. She took notes in the
sessions and presumably shared them with her
supervisors. Later in the course of my therapy,
Tina would call me with some orders that I
assume came from one of these supervisors.
I think that what I needed at this point in my
development was structure, in the sense that I
needed to go to college and to learn how to hold
a job, to make friends, and to create a support
system. I found all these things in the group.
My roommates were generally older than I was
and taught me a lot of the basic things that we all
need to learn to be independent adults. We all
supported each other emotionally, with some
exceptions. I was able to find work and to
support myself while I attended and did well in
college. I wasn’t ready for a long-term,
committed, romantic relationship.
Tina was very directive as a therapist, not so
different perhaps from many of the other
therapists in the Sullivan Institute but after
having heard from other patients of hers, I
believe that she was more heavy-handed than
many. Two specific instances of this
directiveness stand out. The first took place
when I was in college. I was studying the
writings of Karl Marx, and I had organized a
group of people who wanted to learn more about
Marx’s theories. I found a teacher for our group
through the Union of Radical Political
Economists, a relatively well-known group
among leftist scholars. Right before the first
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 47
