E. Paul Bindrim (14 August 1920 in New York City – 17 December 1997 in Los Angeles) was an American psychotherapist who is known as the founder of nude psychotherapy which he believed allowed people to access and express repressed feelings more easily.
This was based in part on ideas about peak experiences described by Abraham Maslow, considered the father of Humanistic Psychology.
[4][citation needed] The American Psychological Association's Ethics Committee decided to investigate him prompted by conservative politicians, but, due to the cultural climate of the late 1960s and the fact that the nudity was consensual, this was dropped.
[5] By the late 1970s, Bindrim replaced nude psychotherapy with "aqua-energetics" based on Wilhelm Reich's theories, specifically the idea of "orgone energy.
"[2] Interest in radical forms of psychotherapy declined in the 1980s and Bindrim continued to practice with a more conventional model.