Psychologists and psychiatrists took over the role in society once occupied by priests or shamans. It was their job to make sure that everything was all right. America couldn’t train psychologists quickly enough in those days, for it was believed that if only they had enough head doctors, then society could be made perfect. For a bright, ambitious young man like Timothy Leary the field of psychology allowed him to establish himself rapidly, achieve financial comfort and respectability, and settle down to just the sort of idealised life that psychologists and the American Dream were offering. After the war he returned to academia and embarked on the longest period of conformity in his life. He moved to California and, in September 1946, he became a doctoral student in psychology at Berkeley. He would consider himself a Californian, jail and legal status permitting, for the rest of his life.
Tim’s professional rise was quick and seemingly effortless. After finishing his studies he worked as a consultant, an instructor at the University of California’s Medical Center, and in private practice. In 1954 he became director of psychology research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital, and published nearly 50 papers in psychology journals. His work culminated in the publication of a book called Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality: A Functional Theory and Methodology for Personal Evaluation. A huge work, 518 pages long and stuffed with diagrams and charts, it created a big impression in the world of psychology. The Annual Review of Psychology named it their ‘Best Book on Psychotherapy of the Year’ in 1957 and called it a ‘must read’ for American psychologists. It was followed by a manual of diagnostic tests called Multi Level Measurement of Interpersonal Behaviour, which sold well to institutions such as the prison system. It was these tests that, 14 years later, labelled Tim as a model member of the Californian prison population.
Interpersonal Diagnosis was essentially a method of categorising patients based on their personality types. The system would be used for decades to come and was an important step towards the personality tests commonly used today, such as the Myers-Briggs assessment. It included many ideas that were radical at the time. It argued that the definition of normality in psychological therapies was nothing more than a reflection of the white, middle-class values of the vast majority of psychologists.11 It claimed that the profession was too hung up on symptoms when it should have been analysing the patient’s environment and circumstances. Too often, what was considered abnormal, neurotic or psychotic behaviour was a ‘healthy, pro-survival adaptation’ of an individual to an unhealthy situation. And he argued that ultimately a patient is not a victim, and should not be encouraged to seek a source of blame for their problems, such as bad parents, the system or their background. Instead, they must accept responsibility for their lives and their own reactions to the situations in which they find themselves. This is an idea that is now a familiar concept in the twenty-first century personal development movement. Although many of Tim’s staff contributed to the work that went into the book, the ideas behind it and the overall philosophy were clearly his. It earned him a nickname: Theory Leary.
Interpersonal Diagnosis was the high point of Leary’s psychology career. But despite his success, his dissatisfaction with his profession was slowly becoming visible. For years his research team had been keeping score of the success rate of psychology. The results were sobering. No matter what types of psychotherapy were being used, a third of patients would get better, a third would stay the same, and a third would get worse. Control groups, where the patients did not receive treatment, showed exactly the same scores. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the profession he studied simply didn’t work.
Tim’s personal life flowered during this period. He met Marianne Busch during the diagnosis of his hearing problem in the army and fell in love at first sight. She was intelligent, musical, sophisticated and very sexy, and they were married on 12 April 1944. Once in California, they bought a $40000 house in the Berkeley Hills, at 1230 Queen’s Drive, with a terrific view of San Francisco across the Bay. Their first child, Susan, was born three years later, and their son Jack followed two years afterwards.
Their social life revolved around parties with other professional and academic couples. These were flirtatious, alcohol-fuelled affairs, but they always remained on the right side of respectable. No one really misbehaved, or at least not publicly. Like everyone else, the Learys drank heavily and, despite Tim’s father’s alcoholism, they thought nothing of it. Jugs of martinis were thought to be sophisticated, and those who didn’t drink were considered prudes. Cracks had started to appear in the marriage after the children were born, but alcohol helped to mask them, so they stayed, in true 1950s’ style, hidden and ignored.
In 1953, after months of friendship and flirting, Tim realised that he was in love with his project manager, Mary della-Cioppa, more commonly known as Delsey They started an affair that lasted two years, meeting three or four times a week in a small apartment that Tim rented in Telegraph Avenue. The affair became common knowledge, but although Marianne knew, it was never mentioned. Her drinking increased. She started seeing a psychiatrist.
No one realised how badly Marianne was suffering. She kept up the proper, respectable 1950s’ façade when she could have complained and argued and screamed. She could have escaped through separation or divorce. She could have taken the children and moved back in with her parents. Instead, she got out of bed on the night of 21 October 1955, taking care not wake Tim, and went downstairs to the garage. She closed the heavy redwood garage door, which was always left open because it had swollen in the damp weather. She got in the car and she started the engine.
When Tim woke the next morning, it was his thirty-fifth birthday. He was hung over. He searched the house, looking for his wife. His cries of ‘Marianne!’ woke the children, and they were following him when he went outdoors. The sound of the engine idling could be heard from within the garage. He wrenched the redwood door open and inhaled the sudden rush of exhaust fumes. Marianne’s body was in the front seat.
The note she left was brief. ‘My Darling,’ it said, ‘I cannot live without your love. I have loved life but have lived through you. The children will grow up wondering about their mother. I love them so much and please tell them that. Please be good to them. They are so dear.’12
It’s impossible to say how anyone, whether spouse or child, can recover from an event like this. The Learys found their own ways to cope. Tim dealt with the situation by turning to Delsey for support, and after the funeral they were married. They honeymooned in Mexico with the children, a vacation that Jack Leary would later describe as ‘short and unpleasant’. After returning to California, Tim felt the need to get right away. He took a leave of absence from his job, rented out the house and dragged the family off to Spain. The voyage was miserable and Tim and Delsey separated shortly after they arrived.
This self-imposed European exile would be a period of transition for Tim, and the end of his previous life would prove to be painful. The children were having a horrible time being dragged between various European schools. He had lost his faith in his profession. Marianne’s death hung over him, and he now had two failed marriages to add to his failures at Classical High, Holy Cross, West Point and the University of Alabama. He caught the clap from a Spanish prostitute during the Christmas of 1957. His money supply started to dwindle.
Tim rented an Olivetti typewriter and began work on a manuscript that outlined the changes he felt his profession needed to make in order to achieve results. It was called The Existential Transaction. In it he argued that psychologists shouldn’t stay inside clinics, but needed to venture out into the real world and see patients in real-life situations, as the act of going inside a hospital and seeing a doctor changes the patient’s psyche. He also argued that the psychologist himself should not try to be a neutral observer. He had to become involved with the patient, and be prepared to be changed by the process as much as, or even more than, the patient. This was a radical stance to take in the field of psychology. It recalls the paradigm shift in physics caused by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which