Uitată azi, dar de mare ecou în 1967, în plină revoluţie sexuală, când psihologul Paul Bindrim a fondat această orientare, inspirat fiind de ideile celebrului Abraham Maslow. Bazată pe considerarea trupului gol ca întreg, teoria şi practica de la clinica din Topanga Canyon, California, presupunea atingeri între grupuri de persoane, masaj şi contact vizual prelungit într-o piscină încălzită. Filosofia mişcării era că prin onestitate afectivă şi prin amplificarea acesteia în grup se va ajunge la mari rezultate personale. Nuditatea trebuia să stimuleze spontaneitatea, libertate, căderea cenzurilor. Aceste metode care poate par azi puţin obişnuite, erau şi atunci – cu atât mai mult – scandaloase pentru mulţi şi au aproape că au dus la excluderea lui Paul Bindrim din American Psychological Association.

În lucrarea sa de referinţă „Baring the soul: Paul Bindrim, Abraham Maslow and Nude psychotherapy„, publicată în Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, istoricul Ian Nicholson sintetizează astfel principiile neortodoxei orientări:

Nude therapy was based on the idea of the naked body as a metaphor of the „psychological soul.” Uninhibited exhibition of the nude body revealed that which was most fundamental, truthful, and real. In the marathon, Bindrim interrogated this metaphor with a singular determination. Bodies were exposed and scrutinized with a science-like rigor. Particular attention was paid to revealing the most private areas of the body and mind-all with a view to freeing the self from its socially imposed constraints. „This,” Bindrim asserted gesturing to a participant’s genitalia and anus, „is where it’s at. This is where we are so damned negatively conditioned” […] Determined to squelch the „exaggerated sense of guilt” in the body, Bindrim devised an exercise called „crotch eyeballing” in which participants were instructed to look at each others genitals and disclose the sexual experiences they felt most guilty about while lying naked in a circle with their legs in the air […] In this position, Bindrim insisted „you soon realize that the head end and the tail end are indispensable parts of the same person, and that one end is about as good as the other.”

Iată cum descrie istoricul şedinţele-maraton de psihoterapie, care durau 24 ori chiar 36 de ore:

Bindrim was convinced that the “natural state” of humanity had been lost and that disrobing would peel back layers of modernist artifice and alienation and reestablish a healthy connection with one’s body and the true self. Ironically, although a self-declared enemy of the inauthentic, Bindrim sought psychological deliverance through the very artifice he decried. Far from being spontaneous returns to “nature,” his marathons were carefully orchestrated performances of psychological ingenuity and financial opportunism…

Bindrim began this process by employing familiar encounter group techniques. Participants were invited to “eyeball” each other (stare into each other’s eyes at close range) and then to respond in some physical way (hugging, wrestling, etc.). After this ice-breaker, participants disrobed in the dark to musical accompaniment before joining a small circle to perform a “meditation-like” hum. This process, Bindrim felt, gave rise to the “feeling of being all part of one human mass”.

Psihoterapia nudă s-a bucurat de mare interes în epocă, dar a dispărut repede, iar astăzi nimeni nu-şi mai aminteşte de ea. Poate fi însă citit excelentul articol al lui Ian Nicholson la care am făcut referire mai sus.