"The shocking story of the Sullivan Institute, a psychoanalytic organization of artists and intellectuals that devolved into a dangerous cult on Manhattan's Upper West Side"-- Provided by publisher.
In the middle of the 1950s, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis opened its doors in New York City. Its founders, Saul Newton and Jane Pearce, wanted to start a revolution grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from the expectations of society. The movement attracted many creative people as patients; in the 1960s the group evolved into an urban commune, with patients living with other patients, leading creative, polyamorous lives. But by the mid-1970s the Institute had devolved into an insular cult, with therapists controlling virtually every aspect of their patients’ lives. Stille reconstructs the inner life of a parallel world hidden in plain sight in the middle of Manhattan, and reveals the nearly unbelievable story of a fallen utopia. -- adapted from jacket
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