Matter Over Mind

Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1977

The name Matter Over Mind derives front a seminal work by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on the theory of consciousness. We quote below a critical passage from The German Ideology:

“… we do not set out from what men and women say, imagine, conceive, nor from men and women as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived in order to arrive at men and women in the flesh. We set out from real, active men and women, and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes end echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no developments but men and en, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.”

NYI Editorial: In Defense of Progressive Social Science

By Fred Newman, Therapeutic Director

Fred Newman received his B.A. degree in 1959 from The City College of New York. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy and Scientific Methodology from Stanford University in 1963. He has taught at various colleges and universities including The City College of New York, Knox College, Antioch College, Western Reserve University and the New School. He is the author of numerous technical articles on the philosophy of science, the book Explanation by Description and a book in progress entitled Practical-Critical Activities. He has been in private practice since 1969 and was a founder of Centers Clinic and Centers for Change, two New York City-based mental health service collectives. He is currently Therapeutic Director of the New York Institute of Social Therapy.

Dennis King's attack on the New York Institute Of Social Therapy (NYI) in the November issue of “Heights And Valley,” while mainly socio-pathic political slander (dealt with by Joyce Dattner's open letter, which is available from the Institute upon request), raises some very Important issues for those of us who have long been active in the fight to advance the social sciences in ways which are both scientifically valid and societally relevant. We at the Institute have grown accustomed to being accused by self-styled politicos (of every persuasion) of being too psychological, while, at the same time, being accused by the credentialed of the psychological establishment as being too political. Indeed, both the uncredentialed politicos and the credentialed clinicians are correct. We at the NYI are firmly committed to the perspective that a progressive politic which fails to come to grips scientifically with the subjective states of the practitioners of politics as well as the subjective state(s) of the class which the politic purports to reflect is in fact not so much a progressive politic but an abstract ideological credo which middle-class intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals attempt to impose on reality. On the other hand, traditional ahistorical psychological treatment relies in the final analysis on a model of human society and thereby a model of the human mind which Marx has decisively shown to be scientifically invalid. While elements of traditional psychology are of value (since, of course, valid conclusions can and often are drawn from false premises), traditional Freudian arid neo-Freudian theories of mind remain fundamentally flawed and fundamentally idealistic. Again, the critics of the NYI are each correct in their one-sided attacks.

King's article is, of course, no laughing matter. Yet, I could not help smiling just a bit at the suggestion that an overt commitment to political activism is a good technique for attracting patients. Let me advise any would-be gurus that such is not the case. Indeed, the history of our clinic has conspicuously revealed that substantial growth in the number of patients has taken place when political activism was at a minimum.

We began in the early 1970s as Centers Clinic, an out-patient therapeutic community located on West End Avenue in the 80s. In little over a year, that community grew to over 125 patients, keeping 4 therapists working more than full-time and an administrative staff of 4 working full-time. At that point (that is, at the beginning) political rhetoric was more the order of the day rather than political activism. This was not so by intent, but rather reflected the stage of our political and therapeutic development. It was commonplace at that time (the early 70s) for the radical therapy community to use much political rhetoric but to be involved in very little political activity. Indeed this was in my opinion much less true of us than many other radical therapy projects.

As our practical-theoretical understanding of both politics and therapy developed through the 1970s, we were obliged to become increasingly active. The result of this (and this is transparently lawful, and recognizable as such to anyone except a Dennis King-like mentality) was that patient enthusiasm and potential patient population of the clinic (at that time primarily middle class, white and liberal) was dramatically reduced. What is true is that we are now, after several years, beginning to attract highly qualified professionals with traditional training who are eager to learn what we have discovered in our many years of research and practice, and we are very enthusiastic about the developing scientific interplay between these progressive professionals and those of us who have been at the Institute for years evolving new methodological and clinical approaches.

It is of the greatest importance that the entire community of social scientists insist that there be open and critical discussion and dialogue towards the advancement and development of the human sciences; that as scientists and as professionals we do not quiver and shake under the socio-pathological and essentially anti-communist rampages of a Dennis King or others like him. I am not suggesting that the scientific community will. However, we must openly confess that the scientific community has folded in the past and we would do well to remind ourselves of this fact at this time. The radical therapy movement, the anti-psychology movement, has made and continues to make valuable contributions to the development of the human sciences. The increasing involvement of Marxists in the field of psychology, is on my view, critical, and all serious scientists (whether Marxist or non-Marxist) should welcome this and recommit themselves to even more intensive and more open dialogue on these matters. The NYI, of course, remains firmly committed to doing so.

While psychosurgery, involuntary drug treatment, methadone programs and behavior modification techniques increase (particularly as used to control poor and working people, in prisons, hospitals and schools), the Dennis Kings are busy “protecting” Upper West Side middle-class liberals from “brainwashing.” The responsibility of this county (both the Upper West Side and the scientific community) is not to protect itself but to reassert itself as a progressive liberal radical community in which scientific and political advances and dialogue can take place with principledness openness and seriousness. It is imperative that the West Side community retain its integrity as a progressive community—as a community where new ideas can be openly considered. There is no reason at all to overreact to King's malicious diatribe. Yet it seems to me we would be well advised to take its appearance as another occasion on which to recommit ourselves to the intensive dialogue necessary for scientific and human advancement.

Participant Discusses NYI Lecture Series

“Society and the Human Sciences” was a five-week lecture series by Fred Newman, offered to professionals and non-professionals, by the New York Institute in October of this year. The course examined the breakdown of the basic philosophical assumptions that conceptually support the whole of bourgeois science. The article below was written by Lois Hood. Lois was a participant in the course. She received her PhD in psychology from Columbia University in 1977, and presently does research in comparative human cognition at the Rockefeller University and research in language development at Columbia University.

I am confident that all of us experienced similar feelings of stimulation, challenge, excitement (and—at times—perplexity) in response to a multitude of issues raised throughout the five weekly meetings. I would like to share one of those issues with you now, one which concerns me primarily in my professional life, but one which also is necessarily of concern to me personally.

In the most general terms, the issue to which I refer is the inter-relatedness of all human behaviors and activities and the systematic way in which contemporary science (and society) ignores this inter-relatedness. In the social sciences in particular, the overwhelming tendency is to dichotomize, and to thus make the fields of study, behaviors, variables, etc., abstract.

In my own area of research, for example, some of the dichotomies that are for the most part taken for granted are: basic and applied research experimental and clinical psychology; cognitive and social development; competence and performance; syntax and semantics. I have come to question these dichotomies increasingly over the past year or two, and to replace them with an attempt to locate behavior in its proper context. For it is not until a specific act is seen in terms of its many environments that it can be adequately described and ultimately understood.

Let me try to clarify this with an example. We all know that many children are unable to read. Many of these children in turn are labeled dyslexic or learning-disabled. Suppose that several tests are given to these children, and suppose that the children perform in ways that are consistent with the theory that dyslexia can be traced to a brain dysfunction. Alternatively, suppose that the children's scores on another set of tests indicate that some kind of emotional instability is the cause. Neither of the theoretical positions on which the tests are based views the problem of failure to read in a total vacuum—they do take some contexts into account. That is, they delve into other aspects of the children's lives for example, other instances of cognitive functioning or some interpersonal and personality characteristics.

However, neither theory locates these individual children and their particular reading behaviors concretely, in terms of the contexts of being members of a particular society at this precise historic moment. In other words, one of the many aspects of children's reading behavior (or lack of it) that both theories overlook is the very real fact that in our society reading is taught in an educational setting where some children must necessarily fail. This fact mirrors political and economic environmental realities in which failure to read is in fact located. Thus, while failure to read may be descriptive of a particular individual, the cause of that failure cannot be sought solely inside that individual. Rather, it can only be understood in terms of the contexts in which such failure occurs and continues to occur.

“Society and the Human Sciences” was exciting for me in part because it spoke directly to (and aided) my increasing understanding of the importance of locating behaviors and activities in their contexts. Fred Newman illuminated this issue for me in two ways. First, he articulated what is a central characteristic of contemporary science—the tendency to dichotomize and the related tendency to deal with abstractions. Enveloping the field-specific dichotomies I mentioned above is the more general split between theory and methodology that contemporary science erroneously but lawfully, makes. And it is this fallacy that Dr. Newman most clearly attacked, and that speaks directly to issues in psychology and education. The interdependence of theory and methodology is apparent in the dyslexia example cited above, in that if one's theory locates the failure to read inside the brain of the individual, then one's methodology must surely preclude examining the social and political organization of classrooms, much less of society. Thus, the experimental procedures employed, both psychological and neurological, are confined by a methodology used to inform one's theory.

A second way in which this issue was illuminated for me was in the manner of presentation. An application of a scientific methodology was apparent in the use of illustrations of problems from several apparently divergent, but actually interdependent, areas—mathematics, economics, philosophy, psychology, linguistics. A measure of the success of the course is that the inter relation among these fields, as well as their relation to society as a whole, was most vividly shown.

NY State Jury Agrees That Prisons Produce Mental Illness

By Harry Kresky

Is a prisoner who is being driven out of his mind by the contradictory nature of an educational release program, in which he is free to attend classes during the day and must re-incarcerate himself to a regimen of harassment each night, justified in escaping? Yes, concluded a Dutchess County jury on November 19th when they found Salvador Agron not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect of the crime of “absconding.”

Crucial in the, defense effort by lawyers William Kunstler, Barbara Swartz and myself was the testimony of Dr. Joel Kovel, author of White Racism. Dr. Kovel explained to the jury that although Mr. Agron was now quite normal, the contradictory nature of the program and the harassment to which he was subjected there, in light of his 18 years in maximum security prisons, induced in the defendant a pre-psychotic state whereby he began to believe he was the object of a conspiracy to destroy him. It was to preserve his sanity and prevent himself from becoming psychotic that Salvador absconded, according to Dr. Kovel.

Kovel emphasized that Fishkill Correctional Facility, to which Mr. Agron returned each night, was formerly Mattawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and that the architecture and guards there reminded Salvador of Dannamora Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where for months at a time in earlier years he had been brutally and inhumanly treated.

Efforts to refute Kovel's analysis were made by Daniel Schwartz and John Train, two psychiatrists retained at $75 per hour by the prosecution. It was their conclusion that Salvador was legally accountable for his conduct, although they diagnosed him as an anti-social personality. Their credibility with the jury was undermined when defense attorney Kunstler brought out on cross-examination that this diagnosis was based on information gotten from material supplied by the District Attorney from Salvador's prison files.

With Dr. Schwartz on the stand, Kunstler, reading from the same files, pointed to a long list of accomplishments made by the defendant in his later years in prison, such as founding a newspaper and obtaining a regent's diploma and junior college degree. Kunstler asked Schwartz if he knew about these achievements and in most cases he did not. He then asked whether, if had he known, he would have changed his diagnosis of anti-social personality. Schwartz answered, “No Sir!”

Lest there be any doubt of the social and political location of hired hands like Schwartz and Train, it is of interest to note that soon after the Agron trial Schwartz was retained by the defense in a case in Brooklyn. Only this time, the defendant, on whose behalf Schwartz testified, was Richard Torsney, a New York City Policeman charged with murder in the shooting of a black youth. In that case Schwartz argued that the killer cop, as a result of “mental disease or defect,” was not legally responsible for his conduct.

It is now legally required that Mr. Agron be observed by psychiatrists in yet another state hospital to determine if he is presently a danger to himself or others. If they conclude that he is not a danger the Court can then discharge him, which for Salvador means returning to prison to await a parole board hearing in January of 1978. If he is granted parole he will at last be free after 18 years in prison for two deaths growing out of a gang fight when he was 16 years old.

His trial, which resulted in a death sentence, was surrounded by a wave of racist hysteria as the public's thirst for revenge was stirred up against the then teenage Puerto Rican gang leader known as the “Capeman.” In his long years in prison, after his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, Salvador transformed himself from an illiterate 16-year-old into a serious and creative adult who writes poetry and is a powerful spokesperson for prisoners' rights and the rights of all poor and oppressed people.

Harry Kresky is a graduate of Columbia University Law School. He is presently a practicing attorney and an active member of the National Lawyers Guild. He is the Coordinator of the Committee to Defend Poor and Working People Against Repression and a leading member of The Committee to Free Salvador Agron. Harry recently served as co counsel, with William Kunstler and Barbara Swartz, in the defense of Salvador Agron. To find out how you can help to free Salvador Agron, contact The Committee to Free Salvador Agron, 192 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10038, (212) 732 2440.

Brutality in the Welfare Centers

The accompanying news article appeared in last week's New York Post. The testing procedures for guards represent a significant (although far from complete) victory for the New York City Unemployed end Welfare Council (NYCUWC). The Council, a union of over 4,000 welfare recipients in New York City, has documented twenty cases of brutality—the beating of welfare recipients by guards—in the past year. The Council has conducted an aggressive Anti-Brutality Campaign bringing the evidence of brutality to the attention of Schulz, the HRA and many City Council members, pressuring them to take the steps necessary to bring an end to these beatings. Although Schulz has consistently denied the beatings, legal counsel for the NYCUWC has presented overwhelming proof that shows her denials to be unfounded. The denials, in fact, give license for the beatings to continue. There is presently a struggle underway to force the firing of one of the most pathological of the guards, Julian Gordon, from the Sutphin Center in Jamaica. Gordon, whose indiscriminate beatings of recipients is known far and wide, was one of the first cases documented by the Council and it is only this exposing of his cruel and inhuman behavior that has forced him to restrain himself for fear of losing his job.

HRA to Give Mental Tests When Hiring New Guards

By Michael Rosenbaum, NY Post

Newly hired guards at city welfare centers will have to undergo a battery of psychological tests to determine whether they are emotionally fit for their jobs. The tests, similar to those administered to newly hired police officers, are designed to alert Human Resources Administration officials to guards with “personality problems which would make it difficult to do their jobs,” said Dorothy Schulz, director of HRA's police operations unit.

HRA agreed to begin the psychological testing after City Council President Paul O'Dwyer told the agency he had received complaints from welfare recipients charging they had been harassed and physically abused by guards at welfare centers.

Denial

Miss Schulz denied there had been instances of physical abuse by any of the 550 guards now assigned to some 70 income-maintenance, food stamp and other HRA centers in the city. The testing, she said, “is just the first step in upgrading the qualifications and selection method for this job,” which pays about $8,800 a year.

Only guards hired in the future will be required to take the psychological tests, she said, which will be administered during the training period following hiring. Miss Schulz said that poor results are not in themselves grounds for dismissal.

Guards who display overly aggressive or passive tendencies on the exams, she said, “will be monitored very closely” by supervisors.

The Production of Criminality in the Prison System

The Institute recently received a letter from Richard X. Armstrong, a prisoner who has been incarcerated at Lucasville Prison, Ohio for the past three years on charges of robbery. During that time, Richard has developed a deep understanding of the politics of prisons and its relationship to capitalism. He is currently a leader in the struggle by a growing number of prisoners who have renounced their U.S. citizenship and who wish to leave this country in order to rebuild their lives outside the U.S. Copies of the letter from Richard (which explains his struggle for freedom, dignity and human rights) are available from the Institute upon request. Below is an extended excerpt in which Richard discusses how the total institution of prison produces, encourages, promotes and breeds criminality.

“My ideas, in search of the ideal, are not the ideas of the Western World, i.e., capitalism. I view capitalism as an awesome and demeaning disease, a terrible dehumanizing sickness preying upon every man, woman and child here in the Western World. I am a communist, having debriefed myself from the dimension of capitalist school of thought. My ideas search for the ideal of communism, and that. why I seek to renounce my United States citizenship so I can leave this citadel of evil, here in the Western World, and go and live among the most humane and honorable people in the world, the people who compose the communist world, and to be sure, I would embrace mother Russia with love, or any other socialist country.

“Of course I am aware that there are those who would have much to say concerning the fact that I am in prison, notwithstanding the case of Vladimir Bukovsky, the Russian prisoner/dissident, whom president Carter invited to the White House (I don't seek to be invited to the White House, I seek a one-way plane ticket out of the Western world). I take no responsibility whatsoever for what may be termed as my criminal record inasmuch as I was brainwashed into such behavior by the stimulus of criminality that is ever being projected from the institution of criminality, here in the Western World; and to be sure such is an institution here in the West.

“I was born pure and beautiful; however, my mind became infected with the stimulus of criminality; that is ever being projected from the institution of criminality, just for that purpose. Once my mind became infected by injections of the stimulus of criminality I was given unto the hands of the Ohio Department of correction so as that Department would force me into a setting (prison) wherein the stimulus of criminality would be so interwoven into my thought pattern as to forever ensure that I always engage in the behavior of criminality, and thereby ensure the continued presence of the institution of criminality—and that in turn would ensure and guarantee that those who are feeding upon the ever presence of the institution of criminality could continue to do so, viz., the Department of Correction, but by no means limited to the Department of Correction inasmuch as there is a large element within the social economical structure of the Western world which is solely dependent upon the presence of the institution of criminality for feeding its social economical statue quo.

“A prime and inescapable example of such brainwashing is the current setting I am forced to live and function within, the Lucasville prison. The Lucasville prison is one of the newest prisons in the Western World, constructed at a cost of upwards of fifty million dollars, and opened in 1972. The Lucasville prison, isolated in a rural setting, is self-contained in one building, under one roof, and currently holds upwards of two thousand prisoners. Two thousand prisoners and all held under one roof, in one building, notwithstanding the fact that all two thousand have been positively identified as being infected with the stimulus of criminality. The forced setting of the stimulus of criminality is being done by plan and design so as no counter stimulus can give or pose serious threat to the stimulus of criminality that is being forced to interact with itself, thereby breeding and feeding upon itself as it seeks growth to its most intense and profound forms of behavior expressions. Lucasville has given birth to one of the most vicious and violent subcultures on the face of the earth. Murders, beatings, gang rape, extortion, drugs, etc., are commonplace, a way of life within the subculture, and all of such is well-known and fully documented. Correctional officials encourage the dehumanizing growth of the subculture, inasmuch as they have a vested interest in such growth, which I have explained above. The Lucasville prison, like all other prisons here in the Western World, is nothing more than a laboratory, an awesome laboratory within the institution of criminality, wherein the stimulus of criminality is being bred and fed, so as to ensure the presence of the institution of criminality.”

Last December, when we offered “Marxism and Mental Illness” the topic of a three-week public lecture series, we had no idea of what the outcome would be. We were a young center (barely a year old) and we were offering new and controversial material that did not have wide acceptance publicly or within the field. Yet over two hundred people attended the lectures and the stimulating dialogue accompanied by the development of ongoing professional relationships played an important part in the growth of the Institute and contributed to a deeper understanding of the theory and practice that we were putting forth. Over the course of the year, there has been an expressed desire for us to hold another such series of talks. In response to these requests, and with recognition of the interest shown by those who attended last year's lectures, we decided to present this series annually (naming it the “Annual Marxism and Mental Illness Series”) as part of an important public presentation on issues affecting everyone.

WE INVITE YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES AND FAMILIES TO BE WITH US THIS YEAR AND WE WOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.

Anti-Oedipus

We wish to bring to your attention the publication of a new hook, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (published by Viking Press, 1977). The book is a significant statement by the international anti-psychiatry movement. Although the NYI has serious disagreements with the theoretical underpinnings of the work, the material offered is a contribution to the dialogue on the crisis of psychiatry.

We also bring to your attention reviews and discussions of the book as presented in the journal Semiotexte (Vol. II, # 03, 1977). Semiotexte is published by a group of social scientists who devote their journal to “analyzing the power mechanisms which produce and maintain the present divisions of knowledge (Psychoanalysis, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy and Semiotics).”

Book In Progress

“Practical-Critical Activities” is a book currently being written by Fred Newman, Therapeutic Director, on social deterioration in contemporary U.S. society. A draft of Chapter I of the book, “Towards a Non-Paradigmist Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Social Deterioration,” has recently been published by the Institute and is now available.

Chapter 1 identifies and analyzes the crisis of methodology of both contemporary bourgeois science and contemporary Marxist science. A genuine dialectical materialist social analysis is developed and presented and the way is paved for the introduction of a theory of non-reconciliative therapy (clinical history). The chapter lays the groundwork for succeeding chapters on phenomenology and therapeutic practice.

While working to publish the entire book by next fall, we decided to make each chapter available upon its completion and to publish each chapter in draft form. This is being done in order to provide sympathetic and interested professionals and non-professionals with the most up-to-date written version of the theoretical basis of our work and in order to elicit criticisms and comments which will be of help in the ongoing project of writing the book and building the Institute.

(Chapter 1 is available for $3 per copy plus mailing charges of $.30 per copy.)

Matter Over Mind is being published in the hope of creating a vehicle for dialogue between progressive mental health workers, patients and academicians in the human sciences. Our hope is to contribute to the search for solutions to the ever-escalating crisis of contemporary U.S. society. We feel that the progressive scientific community must make an active contribution towards reversing the degeneration and decay we find ourselves facing daily. The New York Institute is committed to building institutions of struggle towards that end. We are pleased to make this first issue of Matter Over Mind available to you. We invite your comments and ideas.

The members of the New York Institute therapy collective are:

Anne Bettman   Ann Green
Fran Costa        Lew Hart
Hazel Daren      Fred Newman
Joyce Dattner    Nancy Ross

Published by the New York Institute of Social Therapy
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