International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 51
The actions that my mother took made me
suspicious and angry, and I was not inclined to
reach out to her. Years later, she contacted me,
and we are now in the process of constructing a
relationship that was interrupted more than forty
years ago.
As I have tried to make clear by including the
excerpts of Alice Graves’s writing about her
experiences with Tina, I was not the only one to
have been affected by Tina’s misuse of
psychotherapeutic techniques and the role she
played as an authority figure in my life. Nor
was Tina by any means the only trainee or
nontrainee therapist who behaved in the ways
that Alice Graves and I have described.
Over the past years, I have had many discussions
with former patients/members of the Sullivan
Institute/Fourth Wall community. Many of them
had similar experiences with their therapists, and
some were told that they were not fit to be
parents and were instructed to give their children
up for adoption. I believe this is a violation of a
parent’s (or a potential parent’s) human rights.
In my opinion, of the many choices in our lives
that we may wish to make on our own, having a
child is one of the most important. A mental-
health practitioner would need overwhelming
evidence of potential or actual harm to children
to legitimately take the action of telling a patient
that she is not fit to be a parent, she should not
have children, or that she should give up her
already-existing children.
Childbearing and childrearing were only two life
decisions that the Sullivan Institute
psychotherapists felt empowered to direct their
patients to make. The therapists often told
patients to quit school, or to go back to school in
a different specialty because they felt that the
patients would be “better” at another type of
work. There were several doctors and medical
students in the group, and they represented one
of the segments the therapists advised. Only
some patients got the go-ahead from their
therapists to enter medical practice. Others were
told to “stay in the lab” because they were not
empathic enough to relate to patients.
The leaders of the group overstepped ethical
boundaries in the sense that they believed that
they knew better what was right for their
patients (and their supervisees’ patients) than the
patients themselves did. So while some patients
benefited when their therapists agreed with them
or supported them in life decisions, others were
stymied and, worse, were prevented from
exploring relationships and career paths that
ultimately may have been fulfilling and
productive.
About the Author
Amy B. Siskind, PhD, received her PhD in
sociology from the New School for Social
Research in 1995. She has written extensively
about The Sullivan Institute/Fourth Wall
community—a group she belonged to for 22
years. In June of 2003, her book The Sullivan
Institute/Fourth Wall Community: From Radical
Individualism to Authoritarianism was published
by Praeger Publishers. She has also written
about the effects of totalistic groups on children
and the conditions within these groups that can
result in child abuse and neglect. She is
currently a Research Director at the Michael
Cohen Group, LLC and lives in Brooklyn with
her husband and daughter.
amy.siskind@gmail.com
The actions that my mother took made me
suspicious and angry, and I was not inclined to
reach out to her. Years later, she contacted me,
and we are now in the process of constructing a
relationship that was interrupted more than forty
years ago.
As I have tried to make clear by including the
excerpts of Alice Graves’s writing about her
experiences with Tina, I was not the only one to
have been affected by Tina’s misuse of
psychotherapeutic techniques and the role she
played as an authority figure in my life. Nor
was Tina by any means the only trainee or
nontrainee therapist who behaved in the ways
that Alice Graves and I have described.
Over the past years, I have had many discussions
with former patients/members of the Sullivan
Institute/Fourth Wall community. Many of them
had similar experiences with their therapists, and
some were told that they were not fit to be
parents and were instructed to give their children
up for adoption. I believe this is a violation of a
parent’s (or a potential parent’s) human rights.
In my opinion, of the many choices in our lives
that we may wish to make on our own, having a
child is one of the most important. A mental-
health practitioner would need overwhelming
evidence of potential or actual harm to children
to legitimately take the action of telling a patient
that she is not fit to be a parent, she should not
have children, or that she should give up her
already-existing children.
Childbearing and childrearing were only two life
decisions that the Sullivan Institute
psychotherapists felt empowered to direct their
patients to make. The therapists often told
patients to quit school, or to go back to school in
a different specialty because they felt that the
patients would be “better” at another type of
work. There were several doctors and medical
students in the group, and they represented one
of the segments the therapists advised. Only
some patients got the go-ahead from their
therapists to enter medical practice. Others were
told to “stay in the lab” because they were not
empathic enough to relate to patients.
The leaders of the group overstepped ethical
boundaries in the sense that they believed that
they knew better what was right for their
patients (and their supervisees’ patients) than the
patients themselves did. So while some patients
benefited when their therapists agreed with them
or supported them in life decisions, others were
stymied and, worse, were prevented from
exploring relationships and career paths that
ultimately may have been fulfilling and
productive.
About the Author
Amy B. Siskind, PhD, received her PhD in
sociology from the New School for Social
Research in 1995. She has written extensively
about The Sullivan Institute/Fourth Wall
community—a group she belonged to for 22
years. In June of 2003, her book The Sullivan
Institute/Fourth Wall Community: From Radical
Individualism to Authoritarianism was published
by Praeger Publishers. She has also written
about the effects of totalistic groups on children
and the conditions within these groups that can
result in child abuse and neglect. She is
currently a Research Director at the Michael
Cohen Group, LLC and lives in Brooklyn with
her husband and daughter.
amy.siskind@gmail.com
