Despite the decor—rows of balloons and cupids cut from red paper—the
meeting more nearly suggested a religious service than the first annual
convention of Neurotics Anonymous. All of the 250 delegates gathered in
the ballroom of Los Angeles' Royal Palms Hotel were confessed
neurotics. But to most the designation was a source of pride, not
humiliation. When a man in his 20s —one of the few young
delegates—rose to report that he had found God again through N.A., his
announcement was greeted calmly; after all, nearly everyone there could
say the same.”I was hurting at gut level, if you know what I mean,” said another
speaker, a middle-aged Negro woman. She predicted cheerfully that
dissolving her emotional problems “layer by layer” would probably take
a lifetime. From a reformed alcoholic, the conventioneers drew
vicarious inspiration. “I was an old man at 16,” he said, “and now I
feel like a kid. It's sure swell to see a whole bunch of kooks like us
get together. It's a miracle.”Suicide Attempts. Miracle or no, Neurotics Anonymous, a nonprofit
self-help program for the emotionally disturbed, can justly claim a
modest success. It was founded six years ago by Grover Boydston, a
Florida psychologist who, like all members, is generally known by first
name only. N.A. now has 5,000 members in 250 chapters from Hollywood to
Haifa. As with nearly everything else about N.A., the figures must be
taken on faith. Noses are casually counted, and any member can open a
new chapter of the group any time he cares to.For Grover, N.A. is the serene culmination of a misspent life: an
unhappy childhood, five suicide attempts before he was 21 and a long
downhill slide to alcoholism. Along this anguished course, Grover
somehow earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from George Washington
University. That and a therapeutic experience with Alcoholics Anonymous
set him to thinking about applying A.A.'s principles to other fields of
human distress.Like A.A.'s host of imitators , Neurotics Anonymous is a direct plagiarism—fully approved, to
be sure, by its model. Each N.A. meeting faithfully follows the A.A.
procedure, down to a reading of some part of A.A. principles, perhaps
the “Twelve Suggested Steps” to salvation, modified to suit N.A.'s
different objective. Thus, in A.A.'s Step 1—”We admitted we were
powerless over alcohol”—the last word has been replaced by “our
emotions.” Unlike formal group therapy, in which the meetings are
supervised by a professional, N.A. meetings are little more than hash
sessions. Problems are ventilated in a climate deliberately kept free
of critical judgment. Every day the N.A. member promises himself that
“I will criticize not one bit, and not try to improve anybody except
myself.”As in A.A., Neurotics Anonymous members are expected to refer their
problems to a greater power, preferably but not necessarily God. To an
avowed atheist, one of Grover's lieutenants proposed in all seriousness
that an ordinary spoon could serve as a divine surrogate. Grover
himself has even suggested that nonbelievers acknowledge the law of
gravity as a higher power.
