Getting IT: The Psychology of Est - Author

Author

Sheridan Fenwick, in her early thirties when Getting It was published, had graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goucher College and received a doctorate in psychopathology and social psychology from Cornell University. Her Ph.D. dissertation was published in 1975. Fenwick served as the director of social policy in the Department of City Planning of Chicago, Illinois, as assistant attending psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, and as a faculty member of Columbia University's department of psychology.

Fenwick writes that although she had been trained as a clinical psychologist, she avoided "consciousness" movements and never participated in transactional analysis or similar therapies, including Transcendental Meditation, Esalen, Arica, gestalt therapy and Mind Dynamics. When she met with graduates of the est training and heard their testimonials and observed their level of self-confidence, she considered taking the training.

After some preliminary research, Fenwick decided to take the training as a participant rather than as a professional observer. She paid the $250.00 course fee and enrolled in a four-day est program to examine its methods and its appeal. She reports that the training was an "extraordinary experience", but that she had "serious concerns about the implications of the est phenomenon", and that people should know more about it. The book was first published September 16, 1976, by J. B. Lippincott Company. A second edition was published by Penguin Books in 1977. Fenwick went on to work as director of the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, before retiring in 1993 to set up Psybar, an online service to provide psychological experts for court cases.