Perspectives on radical therapy.

Halleck (1971) has pointed out that there probably is no apolitical psychotherapy. However, the customary approach has been to attempt to limit the influence of the therapists in regard to anything other than what might be termed "health matters." Emphasis was rarely placed on altering the client's personality through participation in political or social change. Radical therapy insists that whatever is personal is political; it poses a challenge to most therapies. The need for such a challenge, how it occurs. and its value are examined here. This involves describing what rad~cal therapy is, its premises of origin, and offering an evaluation of its starus. Radical therapy is not particularly defined by who does it, or its technical maneuvers, but rather by its goal of insistence on the social changes considered necessary to foster mental health. Participants agree on their dissatisfaction with most other therapeutic viewpoints because these are viewed as aimed at having people accept rather than alter society. Yet the diversity of the participants is striking. They include former institutionalized mental patients, prisoners treated psychiatrically, outpatients, and people feeling exploited by the society, whether or not they have had some kind of therapy. This last group includes minorities, many women, and persons of both sexes who are attempting different life styles and often consider themselves political radicals. The participants are united in a protest against the evils of society as they experience living in it. They are not united on many issues pertinent to psychotherapy. There are disagreements about the reality and "medical" aspect of mental illness and disputes as to the form of psychotherapy as well as about who should do it. The extreme positions taken also bring into question whether such a variety of opinions can legitimately be classified as a movement with psychorherapy as a component. In practice many existing therapeutic techniques, as psychodynamic and behavioristic, as well as a variety of humanistic approaches, as consciousness and peer counseling. are used at first to help with immediate problems. At the same time the therapist hopes the values of the helper will begin to be taken on by the clients. The best initial helping methods are not agreed upon, but there is agreement on the next step. The radical therapist encourages the client to recognize the role of the social structure in personal problems. This is done instead of proposing personal change. The therapist is a social advocate for the client and encourages clients to be active in bringing about social change. The capitalistic society is viewed as the source of emotional difficulties, with the client as a victim and the solution a joint effort to develop a socialistic society. Tennov (1975) sees much of the radical therapy movement arising from an emotional antiscientific position which could better focus on a lack of scientific validation for existing psychotherapies. Hurvitz (1973, 1974) asserts that traditional psychodynamic psychotherapies have persisted only because they strengthen the existing social order of capitalism and are oppressive. The possibility of a connection between social conditions and mental illness is translated into an argument for the evils of capitalism and the advantages of socialism. Radical therapy is proposed as the best solution to bring about mental health (Hurvitz, 1977). The problem with valuing radical therapy by deyaluing other therapies is that evi