Partner Hunt Cole
Queer Places:
317 Park Ave, Mishawaka, IN 46545
10807 Rochester Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Benton Way, Malibu, CA 90265
Isadore
"Eddie" From (October 20, 1918 - June 27, 1994) and Sam From (1918-1956) were twin brothers at the center of The Benton Way Group, they were both gay.
Sam From became close friend with Evelyn Hooker,
an American psychologist most notable for her 1957 paper "The Adjustment of
the Male Overt Homosexual" in which she administered several psychological
tests to groups of self-identified male homosexuals and heterosexuals and
asked experts to identify the homosexuals and rate their mental health. Sam
From died in a car accident in 1956, just before her ground-breaking research
was published.
Eddie From was born in South Bend, Ind., and attended Butler University in
Indianapolis and the University of California at Los Angeles. He studied
philosophy at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, with a focus on
phenomenology.
Eddie's real name was Isadore, and some of his friends called him Isad. The Benton Way Group began when Ruby Bell, a librarian from the Midwest, inherited some money and encouraged a group of her friends, mostly homosexuals and including the Froms and
Charles Aufderheide, to move with her to Los Angeles. There she used her inheritance to acquire the house in Benton Way where they settled together. The house was called The Palazzo because it looked like an Italian villa, and the name later accompanied the household to other settings.
Some of the group were able to find work in the film industry, and Eddie From worked for Technicolor before taking up psychotherapy. According to Alvin Novak, Eddie was once picked up by the police for an offense related to his homosexuality, and
Christopher Isherwood made a lasting impression by coming to his aid. There are many passages about the Froms in Isherwood's Diaries.
Isadore From was one of the formulators of the innovative approach to psychotherapy called Gestalt therapy. Of the original circle of founders of Gestalt therapy, From was a main theorizer. That circle included Dr. Frederick Perls, a psychiatrist, and his wife, Lore, a clinical psychologist, and the social critic and writer
Paul Goodman. From had been one of the earliest patients of Dr. Perls in the late 1940s.
The group met regularly in the Perlses' apartment during the 1950's; during these meetings the basic principles of Gestalt therapy were established.
The Gestalt approach to psychotherapy was a radical revision of psychoanalysis, focusing on the therapist's and the client's attention to the present rather than on the search for underlying causes of disturbance.
Its roots were in German experimental Gestalt psychology in the 1920s and in European existential philosophy and phenomenology, a philosophical movement that stressed the study of events rather than inferred causes.
Out of existentialism it took an emphasis on a person's responsibility for the creation of experience, and from phenomenology it took an intense focus on what the patient experiences and the therapist observes in the therapy session.
From was not widely published but had an extensive personal circle of influence. "All of his transmission of theory was through teaching and teaching of psychotherapists over close to four decades, and leading groups studying theory," said Dr. Michael Miller, a Gestalt therapist in Boston. "He was a therapist's therapist."
Most of his teaching was in New York City, but Dr. From spent several months teaching in Europe each year.
"Mr. From said he learned as much to learn and see from Henry James and Proust as he did from Freud," said Dr. Miller.
From died of a stroke during treatment for cancer on June 27, 1994, said Hunt Cole, his companion for 34 years.
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