Description
The Healing Community is a search for greater understanding of human groups that gather together for mutual therapeutic aid. Among the groups examined are a psychiatric ward run as a therapeutic community; several non-Western healing fraternities including those of the Zuni Indians in the American Southwest; and encounter groups such as Synanon that have become ongoing communities for their members.
Dr. Almond finds that two guiding principles underlie the survival and effectiveness of these unusual organizations. One is communitas, a special sense of cohesive group life that makes all members fundamentally important, regardless of external status or role in the group. The other is healing charisma, an intense and therapeutic quality that pervades interactions among members of the group, especially in relation to the healing process. In each instance, the intensity of stimulation from the group on a newcomer, often in dramatic, consciousness-altering ceremonies, has the effect of recruiting the attention and involvement of the newcomer. Following this, the sufferer is influenced through a natural form of behavior modification to new, more successful ways.
Dr. Almond’s experience and knowledge grew out of his role in founding the Collective Psychotherapy Center in Palo Alto in 1972. It offers high-quality private psychiatric, psychological, and psychotherapeutic services to all persons regardless of income. Since its inception it has provided individual therapy, brief and long-term, to many people, and a wide variety of ancillary services as well.
