Dick Price

Richard "Dick" Price (born October 12, 1930 in Chicago ; † November 25, 1985 ) was an American psychologist and, with Michael Murphy, founder of the Esalen Institute on the Big Sur California coastline .

Life

Price grew up in multiple locations in the state of Illinois with a twin brother - who died aged three - and an older sister . He studied psychology at Stanford University , then clinical psychology at Harvard University . In 1955 he moved to the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco , newly founded by Alan Watts and the Stanford Professor of Comparative Religious Studies and Indology , Frederic Spiegelberg . There he made contact with leading representatives of the Beat Generation , especially Gary Snyder .

In 1956 he went through severe psychosis . In the course of this, his parents took him to a clinic in Hartford , where he was treated, among other things, with electroshock and insulin shock therapy. After just under a year, he was released on Thanksgiving 1957 and returned to the Chicago area.

In 1960 he moved back to California to join Gia-Fu Feng , where he met his fellow Stanford student Michael Murphy. They founded the Esalen Institute in 1962 on a property owned by the Murphy family near the Santa Lucia Mountains . Price saw Esalen as an alternative to the usual psychiatry as he had experienced it. He wanted a place where the “inner process” could proceed undisturbed. From 1964, he was at Esalen by Fritz Perls in the Gestalt therapy introduced. He practiced and taught this there until he died of a rock fall on a hike near the institute in 1985.

Web links

• Interview with Dick Price, recorded by Wade Hudson, English