Sex and psychology in Oklahoma City
The ornate lobby of the Skirvin Plaza Hotel is jammed with ranchers wearing sweat-stained Stetsons, scuffed boots and $500 pinstripe suits. On the lawn of the nearby state capitol, black rocker arms pump oil from deep within the earth.
This is Oklahoma City (pop. 378,000), an amalgam of cowboys and oilmen, of good-ole-boy morality and Bible-thumping religion. Adultery and homosexuality are still on the statute books as illegal; so too is public drinking.
But for several years, Oklahoma City's residents have been both horrified and titillated by a scandal that involves money, politics, sex and revenge—and some of Oklahoma's most prominent citizens, politicians and psychologists. As one participant observed to a friend, "It's better than Soap or Dallas. Who could have ever thought this one up?" Who, indeed.
At the center of the storm is bushy-browed, Greek-born George Barkouras, 43, who arrived in the city in 1971 with $1,000 and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Kiel in West Germany.
He joined his cousin Psychiatrist Marcus Barker at the Oklahoma City Psychiatric Clinic. Six months of on-the-job training enabled Barkouras, a compelling personality, to attract patients from a colleague, Richard Sternlof. Sternlof resigned and opened his own clinic, the Timberridge Institute.
Within a few years, Barkouras, smartly turned out in well-cut European suits, was de facto head of the clinic and was earning $250,000 a year. His patients included members of Oklahoma City's most powerful and socially elite families. He and his German-born wife Marga lived in a $200,000 modern house, drove Cadillacs and maintained a summer retreat in Loutraki, a Greek resort city.
But Barkouras had ambitions to transform psychoanalytic theory. He developed a set of theories that castigate Freud's approach as too narrow to account for human behavior. The Barkouras doctrine integrates some Freudian concepts with ideas from philosophers like Plato and Heidegger. Two samples of Barkouras' insights: "Man is the eventfulness of life" and "Neurosis is attractive but health is irresistible." According to Barkouras, many mental patients are not ill, only confused. In 1976, at a convention of the Oklahoma State Psychological Association, some 1,000 professionals assembled to hear his theories, which were hailed by then Governor David Boren in a letter to the society. Said Boren: "For the first time, Oklahoma is making a significant contribution of worldwide importance in the realm of social sciences." Barkouras' opponents in the audience booed.
For a time, Barkouras continued to build his empire. He organized a foundation "dedicated to the enrichment of human life," which included a school for exceptional children, financed in part by contributions from rich patrons. At the school he set up a maze that was used in play therapy with children. He wrote books, gave lectures and enrolled Ph.D. candidates as students.
Then, some of Oklahoma City's mainstream psychologists counterattacked. Sternlof complained to the State Board of Examiners that Barkouras was practicing psychology without a license. Barkouras' successful defense: he was a lay analyst and needed no license.