Leary

Timothy Francis Leary October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996 President Richard Nixon once described Leary as “the most dangerous man in America. Vision of a New Psychology Timothy Francis Leary was born to Irish-French immigrants in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1920. His parents and Jesuit school gave him a strict Catholic education. At age 19, he attended the renowned military academy at West Point but left after eighteen months due to disciplinary problems. He began studying psychology at the University of Alabama in 1941 and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree two years later. He then worked as a psychologist in an army hospital in Pennsylvania until the end of WWII. After the war he resumed his studies at Washington State University earning his master’s degree in 1946 and obtaining a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1950. That same year he set up a department of psychology at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland, California, where he encountered his college friend, Frank Barron. The two shared many interests, whether a drink together, playing tennis, or a preference for reading James Joyce over Sigmund Freud. (Lattin2010) They carried out a psychotherapy study in 1955 which received wide notice and was much discussed. One third of the one-hundred and fifty patients treated improved, one third remained unchanged, and one third deteriorated. In the control group that received no treatment, the results were the same. The two established psychologists found the results to be sobering and prompted Leary to deeply question the relationship between physician and patient and to explore new psychotherapeutic treatment methods. He finally was promoted to clinic director and published nearly fifty articles which brought him respect in the field. His book Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality (Leary 1957), which was based on the analysis of hundreds of group treatment outcomes, presented his method for categorizing patients into different personality types with five levels of inter-personal interaction. Leary did not automatically consider patient behavior that deviated from the norm to be dysfunctional. As long as symptoms of severe illness were not present, he thought such persons should be supported in managing their own lives. With that, Leary challenged the theory of behaviorism which held sway throughout America at the time and limited itself to one-sided observation, measurement, and alteration of behavior patterns. Leary’s book became standard reading for American psychologists and gave him a solid reputation in academic circles. Younger colleagues especially found his approach to a modern psychotherapy to their liking. The personality test developed from his methodology has been used in psychological evaluations and tests for decades now. Despite his success in psychotherapeutic work and research, Leary was frustrated and saw no prospects for his professional future. After nearly ten years at Kaiser Foundation Hospital, he resigned in 1958. He had reached an impasse in his private life as well. A few years earlier, his wife Marianne, whom he married in 1944 and who had suffered increasingly from depression, took her life, leaving Leary with their two children, Susan and Jack, eight and six years of age. He needed to take a break and gain distance from academic life. In the winter of 1959, Leary traveled with the children to Florence, Italy. There he began work on anew manuscript, The Existential Transaction which summarized his ideas for a new psychology. He met his old pal Frank Barron who was on sabbatical in Europe and told Leary about an extraordinary experience he had on a study trip in Mexico. A psychiatrist there had given him a small bag of so-called magic mushrooms which had given Barron “William Blake revelations, mystical insights, and transcendental perspectives.” (Leary1983) Leary was fascinated by Barron’s extravagant report but also concerned about the professional reputation of his old friend. But Barron had even more to report: Professor David McClelland, Director of the Center for Personality Research at Harvard University was also in Florence at that time and, having read Leary’s The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, might be able to help him find a new job. The next day, Leary met McClelland and told him about his next book in which he promoted a new “existential” understanding of the psychotherapeutic process which took the patient, therapist, their environment and world views into account as an interactive system. Such a theory was new to McClelland, but he appeared to like Leary’s plans and vision. After a while he said: “Okay, I am ready to offer you a job....You’re just what we need to shake things up at Harvard.” (Leary 1983) With his two children, Leary rented a spacious house in Newton Center, a suburb of Boston. He quickly acclimated to Harvard and went to work. He met Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Charles Dederich, founder of Synanon, both representing extremely successful self-help groups for addictions. Leary always had the same question: “How do you change human behavior?” Whether encounter groups or client centered therapies, all known methods appeared to take a long time to change habits established over the course of years. Soon, other colleagues became interested in researching new methods of behavior change. One young assistant professor in particular stood out: Richard Alpert. He was the son of a wealthy Boston family, had graduated from Stanford University, and had come to Harvard in 1958 as a lecturer in psychology. He was ten years younger than Leary. The two men were the only faculty members in their department who made themselves available to their students in the evening. Their offices were not far apart, and they soon became friends and decided to start a project together. Leary thought of Frank Barron, and McClelland agreed to bring him from Berkeley to Harvard and gave the green light for a one-year psychology research project. It was to start in the fall of 1960 which gave Leary, Barron and Alpert an entire summer to leisurely develop their plans Mystic Chemist 135-137