The Rise and Fall of a Psychotherapy Sex Cult in Manhattan

Guest Alexander Stille is the author of a fascinating new book: The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune, which chronicles the rise and fall of a mostly forgotten cult ton the Upper West Side of New York in the 70s and the 80s (the same neighborhood where I was born and lived for the first 8 years of my life).

Like so many cults, the Sullivanians started as sort of Utopian experiment with the promise of freeing people from the repressive force of their parents and the traditional nuclear family.

But they were not led by a robed guru; there was no David Koresh-like religious fanatic calling the shots. Instead, the founder was a Marxist psychoanalyst named Saul Newton, who practiced in a fancy office in a wealthy neighborhood. The Sullivanians weren’t some fringe organization, either. They had a lot of money and killer real estate holdings.

Under the guise of a legitimate psychotherapy practice, they lured some of the brightest and most talented people in New York City, including the artist Jackson Pollock, singer Judy Collins, the dancer Lucinda Childs, and the great crime writer Richard Price, who wrote for The Wire, my favorite TV show of all time.

But what started as a communal experiment in living your best life became a highly paranoid and insular cult, with the therapists controlling virtually every aspect of their patient’s lives—from where they lived and worked to how often they saw their sexual partners and their children.

Alexander is an accomplished journalist, author, and professor at Columbia Journalism School. He did countless interviews to reconstruct the inner workings of this cult hidden in plain sight in the middle of Manhattan. In our interview, he talks about:

• The origin story of the Sullivanians

• What they believed and how it was the perfect philosophy for the “Me Generation.”

• The use of isolation and thought control to brainwash the group’s adherents.

• How psychoanalysis became psychotic

• The power of group think

• How the cult ultimately disintegrated.

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Watch the interview on YouTube@ bit.ly/WriteAboutNowYouTube