Social therapy is an activity-theoretic practice developed outside of academia at the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy in New York.
In evolution since the late 1970s, the social therapeutic approach to human development and learning is informed by a variety of intellectual traditions especially the works of Karl Marx, Lev Vygotsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In 1977, Dennis King, writing for Heights and Valley News, penned an article which alleged Newman was the leader of a "therapy cult.
"[30] The Public Eye magazine also carried an article in late 1977 making this claim, though it was primarily directed at Lyndon LaRouche's NCLC (with which Newman was no longer affiliated).
[33] When political researcher Chip Berlet became editor of The Public Eye magazine in 1984, he first announced that the magazine no longer held to that characterization: "As you will learn from a forthcoming article on Fred Newman and the IWP, the Public Eye no longer feels it is accurate to call Newman's political network a cult.