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Political therapy y members’ own admission, the \ psychotherapy side of New Alliance Party politics is rad- ical, controversial, and “revolution- ary.” Based on “a therapy of em- powerment,” its basic tenet sounds reasonable enough: people develop mental-health problems . because society is screwed up in a major way; social conflicts breed personal con- flicts, which in tum spawn emotional trauma. For the most part, though, it isn’t theory that has critics of the program so uptight. If the NAP’s Institutes for Social Therapy, which are scattered around the country (including one on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain), were merely staffed by single-minded clini- cians, the program probably wouldn't get much play outside head-shrinker cliques. But the “social therapists’ are playing more than mind games — they're also trying to organize a political and social revolution. And that connection, say critics, is at the least unethical and may perhaps be brainwashing. : NAP followers and therapists, of course, dismiss that charge a5 4 ludicrous cheap shot from paranoid rivals. But the connection between the party and the therapy clinics — both of which target poor and working- class communities — casts a disturb- ing light on the NAP’s entire agenda. Both were created by Fred N: a long-time activist Jescribet by his followers as brilliant and by his critics as a guru. And both preach the same basic message, coming, conveniently, from two directions that meet in the middle: society sucks. In therapy, patients learn that they are conflicted because society is conflicted and that the only way to deal with that is to their thetitais are’ active Orga for the New Alliance Party, which says, in essence, “We can change this conflicted society.” | | your political leader — it's a system _ what's going on inside your id and most people see as reality. But the - therapist's version of truth, one that “In therapy,” says NAP critic Chip Berlet, who spent four years Te- searching the group, “you're baring your innermost thoughts, which ieaves great potential for abuse by the therapist. And when your therapist is where your political guru knows ego. Here you have a system where the abuse is institutionalized — and that’s the problem.” But the therapists — who, by the way, are not regulated by the com- monwealth — don’t see that nasty link, or at least don’t admit it if they do. “My main response to that is I almost want to laugh,” says Gwen . Lowenheim, director of the Boston Institute for Social Therapy and Re- search and an NAP member. “It's ludicrous. It’s a real insult, both to people in the New Alliance Party and people in therapy. It’s almost like saying they're mindless. Sure, some people become political from being in therapy. If they do, that’s great. But it's more that we just say what our politics are. You can walk into a sychiatrist's office and see copies of Time, Newsweek, People — if that's not political, what is? I think we're more up-front, people know who we are. Plausible as that argument may sound, it creates a few disturbing knots for those not quite ready to join the New Alliance Party in completely upsetting the status quo. Sure, Time and People may be political, but they still reflect rather generically what issues of the National Alliance stacked in the institute’s waiting room is a glaring account of the NAP’s philoso- phy, which doesn’t quite agree with the current state of affairs. The ques- tion? then, is, are emotionally vulnera- ble people seeking aid and comfort at a disadvantage when faced with a goes against a lifetime of social adjust-