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r.d. laing by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - December 20, 2000 |
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| Ronald David Laing (1927-1989) is regarded as one of the most controversial and ground-breaking psychiatrists of the 1960s. Often associated with the Anti-Psychiatry movement and the New Left, Laing became an icon for individual freedom by highlighting the socio-political construction of madness within mental health institutions; arguing that madness is an inherently human language. The Korean War prevented Laing from going to Basels to study with famous Germain psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, but his subsequent work conveys a strong interest in the Continental philosophical tradition (Existentialism and Phenomenology) in contrast to the Behaviourism school which flourished in post-World War II America. Laing studied at the University of Glasgow between 1953-56 and completed medical training in 1958. He was exposed to the harsh realities of treatment: two years spent in a British Army psychiatric unit and a further two years in a hardcore psyhiatric hospital. Laing joined the legendary Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in London in 1961. His first book 'The Divided Self' (1960) approached mental illness from an unusual viewpoint, emphasizing the social construction of reality and the de-personalizing power of psychiatric language in describing illnesses and subjective experiences. Laing suggested that schizophrenia was a way of Being and of experiencing the objective world, not a disease that one 'has'. 'Self and Others' (1961) was more theoretical. It was the seminal book 'Sanity, Madness and the Family' (1964), describing a Tavistock 'family dynamics' investigation undertaken with Aaron Esterson, which truly established Laing's international reputation. Drawing upon a unique interpretation of Gregory Batesons' revolutionary 'Double-Bind' hypothesis, Laing and Esterson provided clinical evidence that some schizophrenia was caused by communication breakdown within the family system. Their work focused upon the middle-class nuclear family, influencing many feminists through studying mother-daughter relationships. Laing and Esterson argued that the 'psychiatrist-patient' relationship failed to consider the patients' life-in-context (Existenz). Laing continued clinical work: he was Director of Psychotherapy at the Langham Clinic between 1962-1965. In 1965, Laing helped establish the Kingsley Hall Therapeutic Center to provide a clinical Space within which people could overcome psychotic breakdowns in a non-institutional context. The five-year project is today wrongly connected with LSD Therapy. 'Inter-personal Perception' (1966) written with H. Phillipson and A.R. Lee provided further Tavistock-derived clinical material. In 'The Politics Of Experience' (1967) Laing questioned societal values systems and the designations of 'mad' and 'normalcy', providing a different perspective to Michel Foucault's geneological studies of asylums. Laing's language analysis fore-shadowed Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In 1970, Laing left Kingsley Hall and spent a transitional period between 1971-72 travelling to India and Ceylon, where he pursued his personal interests in Buddhism and meditation. His later books including 'The Facts of Life' (1976) and 'The Voice of Experience' (1982) speculated about peri-natal experiences (also researched by Stanislav Grof) and mysticism. 'Do You Love Me?' (1976), 'Conversations With Children' (1977) and 'Sonnets' (1979) were literary efforts. 'Wisdom, Madness and Folly' (1985) was an autobiography covering his early years. For many, Laing fell from grace during the 1970s, and was never able to recapture the aura he had as one of the Counter-culture's principal figures. Personal controversies overshadowed his continued clinical work and lecture tours. On 23rd August 1989, R.D. Laing died suddenly of a heart-attack whilst playing tennis in St. Tropez. His creative legacy continues to live on in the Work of diverse thinkers, including Roberta Russell, Robert Anton Wilson, Michael Ventura and James Hillman. |
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Aphorisms By Author: R.D. Laing R.D. Laing Language And Its Origins R.D. Laing & Me: Lessons In Love I'm OK, You're OK Poems and Psychiatry Look At The Madman The Wing Of Madness: The Life And Work Of R.D. Laing Para-Frays: The Writes Of Passage Is Humanity Preparing For Species' Suicide? Wringing Success from Somebody's Failure R.D. Laing and Caritas R.D. Laing Collection Free Associations: Ideology And The Human Sciences 25 Good Reasons Why Psychiatry Must Be Abolished The Unofficial R.D. Laing Website R.D. Laing: Knots Oikos: Steps To An Ecology Of Mind The Divided Science Mental Breakdown As A Healing Process Working Therapeutically With Self And System Disinformation Dossier On Robert Anton Wilson |
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