- For other uses see Fred Newman (disambiguation)
Dr. Fred Newman is a controversial philosopher, playright, political activist, and psychotherapist. He is the creator of "Social Therapy", a type of group therapy involving theatre, comedy improvisation, and political activism, which he advocates as helping clients learn how to develop beyond their self-imposed limitations and improve their mental health. Newman considers himself a Marxist, and utilizes the terminology of dialectical materialism to explain the faults of the capitalist system.
- Proletarian or revolutionary psychotherapy is a journey which begins with the rejection of our inadequacy and ends in the acceptance of our smallness; it is the overthrow of the rulers of the mind. (Preface to Newman's Power and Authority: the Inside View of the Class Struggle (1974)).
Newman's use of left-wing language has been criticized by others on the left who see it as a way to draw unsuspecting, idealistic youth into Newman's unusual organizations. Newman, an independent political activist, has consistently criticized the Democratic Party.
He is a influenced by Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who wrote on the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD is the interval between a child's current learning development and his or her potential development. Newman incorporated this idea into Social Therapy as a way of understanding the current political system as restrictive of positive social advances. In 1993 Newman and Lois Holzman co-authored Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist, an introductory volume on Vygotsky's work.
Social activism
Newman founded a Social Therapy collective called Centers for Change (CFC) in the late 1960s after the student strikes at Columbia University. This group was dedicated to alternative education and raising political consciousness. They also set up clinics and community centers. He brought many of its members to Lyndon LaRouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) in 1974. LaRouche was also using psychoanalysis in his political theories and had distinguished himself as an outsider on the sectarian Left. This alliance did not last long and Newman left the NCLC with his followers to found the International Workers Party, a revolutionary organization.
In 1979 Newman founded the New Alliance Party (NAP) with Lenora Fulani. This group was less radical than the IWP, which continued to operate in secret. The NAP brought Social Therapy to a much broader audience and ran several election campaigns all over the country.
Community work
Newman is also the Artistic Director of the Castillo Theatre, which has performed a number of plays written by him. His plays have garnered criticism from groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for their portrayals of Jews.
External links
Newman's organizations
Anti-newman
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