Book

Stille, Alexander, author.

The Sullivanians : sex, psychotherapy, and the wild life of an American commune / Alexander Stille.

First edition.

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

©2023

x, 418 pages ; 24 cm

"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

Newton, Saul.

Pearce, Jane, 1914-1977.

Sullivan Institute/Fourth Wall Community (New York, N.Y.)

Communal living -- New York (State) -- New York.

Counterculture -- New York (State) -- New York.

Psychoanalysts -- New York (State) -- New York.

Sex, psychotherapy, and the wild life of an American commune

Includes bibliographical references.

A parallel world -- Part I: Precursors. Origins -- The Sullivan Institute and the world of abstract expressionism -- The 1960s : Time of transition -- Part II. The group gathers. Transference -- Breaking with family -- Strange interlude -- Group living -- The secret history -- Part III: Building the Fourth Wall. The Kremlin and the Gang of Four -- Three Mile Island -- The secret history, part 2 -- The security squad -- Paternity -- The children of the Fourth Wall -- Having children in the group -- The defectors -- The unraveling -- Part IV: The Fourth Wall crumbles. Aftermath -- The reckoning -- Coda. The Kids are (mostly) all right.

2023007080

9780374600396

0374600392

1375296406

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1027052

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307.774 Stille