Editing Dick Price (section)

== College education ==
Price graduated from [[Stanford University]] in 1952 with a major in [[psychology]].<ref name=wayoutin/>{{rp|137}} While at Stanford, Price studied with both [[Gregory Bateson]] and [[Frederic Spiegelberg]]. They would later prove to be pivotal influences when he founded and developed programs at Esalen Institute.<ref name=upstart/>{{rp|70–72}}<ref name=kripalno/>{{rp|47–53}} He did graduate work in the [[Harvard Department of Social Relations|social relations department]] at [[Harvard University]], although he left before completing his degree because of his frustration with the conservative, research-oriented faculty.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|137–8}}

=== San Francisco ===
After leaving Harvard in 1955, Price enlisted in the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] and was given an assignment in the [[East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)]].<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|139}} He rented a room in [[San Francisco]] at [[Alan Watts]]' and [[Frederic Spiegelberg]]'s newly founded American Academy of Asian Studies (the precursor to the [[California Institute of Integral Studies]]). During this time, the  [[North Beach, San Francisco, California|North Beach]] [[Beat generation|Beat scene]] was an emerging social trend. Dick knew most of the primary figures, including [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Allen Ginsberg]],  and [[Gary Snyder]].<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|139–40}} Dick married his first wife, Bonnie, in a Zen ceremony.<ref name=upstart/>{{rp|38}}

=== Psychosis ===

In 1956, Price, still in the Air Force, experienced an episode of [[mania|manic]] [[psychosis]] in San Francisco<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|142}} which he later described as simply "a state", what he believed was a mental break that was transitory and which he needed to go through and experience rather than repress or manage.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|143}}

On December 7, 1956, his parents involuntarily committed him to the [[Institute of Living]], an exclusive mental treatment facility in [[Connecticut]].<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|145}} While hospitalized, he was [[misdiagnosis|misdiagnosed]] with [[schizophrenia]]. He was subjected to physical confinement and [[Chlorpromazine|major tranquilizers]], along with numerous [[electroconvulsive therapy|electroconvulsive]] and [[insulin shock therapy|insulin shock]] treatments. While committed, his mother had his marriage [[annulment|annulled]]<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|145}} He was released almost a year later on Thanksgiving Day 1957.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|134}}

Price wrote about his hospitalization experience:

{{blockquote|There was a fundamental mistake being made and that mistake was supposing that the healing process was the disease, rather than the process whereby the disease is healed. The disease, if any, was the state previous to the "psychosis." ... The so-called "psychosis" was an attempt towards spontaneous healing, and it was a movement towards health, not a movement towards disease.... In some categories it would be called mystical, really a re-owning and discovery of parts of myself.<ref name="esalen.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.esalen.org/page/dick-price-interview|title=Dick Price: An Interview - Esalen|publisher=}}</ref>}}

After he was hospitalized, he was discharged from the Air Force, and went to work for his uncle's sign company in Chicago, Price Brothers.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|142}} Price never forgave his parents for their actions.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|146}} Price did not like working for the sign company.<ref name= wayoutin/>{{rp|146}}