Break On Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture

A history focused on the radical approaches to psychiatry in the 1970s that included the end of widespread institutionalization, "antipsychiatry" movement, Esalen, the DSM III, and the application of psychedelics to mental health. Drawing on archives, government documents, medical journals, and interviews, Richert offers a history of a true sea change in how we treat and understand mental health, all tied up with teh 1970s counterculture, the needs of returning Vietnam veterans, the advent of the New Age, and the rise of drug culture.