Arthur J. Deikman
| Arthur J. Deikman, M.D. | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 27, 1929 New York, NY |
| Died |
September 2, 2013 (aged 83) Mill Valley, California |
| Residence | United States |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Fields | Psychiatry |
| Institutions | University of California, San Francisco |
| Alma mater |
Harvard College Harvard Medical School |
| Known for | The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society |
Arthur J. Deikman (September 27, 1929 – September 2, 2013) was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and Human Givens. He was also a contributor to The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
Born in New York City as the son of a businessman and raised in Long Island, Deikman studied physics at Harvard University. He then moved to mathematics, and then to pre-med classes. He traces his choice of psychiatry to an encounter with a doctor who gave him a physical exam prior to his entry to Harvard Medical School: "When I told him I liked Rilke and Yeats, he told me I was going to be a psychiatrist. It gave me the most freedom. I could get research grants because anything could be considered part of the mind." On a two-month summer vacation which he spent camping alone in the Adirondacks, another experience occurred that was to determine the direction his life took: "I sat on a rock by a lake and tried to get closer to what I felt in music and poetry. After two weeks of that, colors became brighter. Something emanated from the sky and trees. I knew other people weren't experiencing it. This seemed very important."
"So habitual is the trance of ordinary life that one could say that human beings are a race that sleeps and awakens, but does not awaken fully. Because half-awake is sufficient for the task we customarily do,
few of us are aware of the dysfunction of our condition."
Intrigued by this altered awareness, Deikman became a pioneering investigator of mystical states in the 1950s and in the following decade created a humane form of psychotherapeutic treatment for patients suffering from psychosis. He also became a student of zen meditation under Suzuki Roshi, of Sufism under Idries Shah, and explored the Human Potential Movement with Esalen leaders George Leonard and Michael Murphy.
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