Recommended Read: Retreat

Retreat: How the Counterculture Invented Wellness takes us back to the summer of love and shows how it changed forever our ideas about, and practices of, wellness, medicine and health.

When we think of the ‘60s and ‘70s, some of the main things that come to mind include the music, fashion, art, feminism and cultural revolt. One of the less-explored aspects from both eras was the relationship with health and wellness, which author Matthew Ingram explores in Retreat: How the Counterculture Invented Wellness.

The Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic was founded in 1967 and resulted in a much larger legacy in the form of the nationwide institution the Free Clinic, which provided free community healthcare. In this illuminating history of the relationship between health and the counterculture, Ingram connects the dots between the beats, yoga, meditation, psychedelics, psychoanalysis, Eastern philosophy, sex and veganism—showing how the hippies still have a lot to teach us about our well-being.

Retreat: How the Counterculture Invented Wellness will be available for purchase on July 14, 2020 and retails for $18.95. For more information and to pre-order, click here.

Kamala Kirk is a University of Southern California graduate and has been an editor/writer for more than a decade. She has written for E! Online, Total Beauty, TravelAge West, Malibu Times Magazine, and many more. She resides in Los Angeles and is a proud pug mom. Follow her on Instagram: @kamalakirk