Search Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »
My library | Help | Advanced Book Search | Web History | Sign in

Books

R.D. Laing

Front Cover
2 Reviews
Edinburgh University Press, 2004 - Biography & Autobiography - 144 pages

The book explores the influence, depth, validity, and context (both national and international) of Laing's work as well as his fall from grace.

Miller traces Laing's tumultuous life and career, as he moved from the forefront of humane, and humanist, psychiatry to a position of notoriety. Later in life, he was an alcoholic, professionally unlicensed, and as disturbed, at times, as anyone he had ever treated. His work also descended into near-madness -- implying, for example, that his problems could be traced to the hostility of his mother's uterus, eight days after he was conceived.

It is hard to forget such a figure; but it is easy to overlook the radical challenge to psychiatry of his earlier work and ideas. Since Laing refused to view mental illness in biomedical/clinical terms, he has often been labeled as part of the so-called 'antipsychiatry' movement, alongside figures such as David Cooper, Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault. Moreover, the Langham Clinic in London (1962-1965), a therapeutic community founded by Laing, the hierarchical distinction between physicians and patients was essentially eliminated. However, Laing strongly rejected this label as being against psychiatry. He never denied that mentally ill people are in need of help -- he simply did not believe that conventional psychiatry provided the answer. In particular, he opposed the use of lobotomies, ECT and the dehumanizing effects of incarceration in psychiatric hospitals.

Much attention has been paid to the psycho-biographical aspects of Laing's life. He seems to have been raised in the kind of family he would later come to regard as conducive to schizophrenia. Although his upbringing gave Laing a motive and material for his theories, it did not give him the intellectual skills to analyze his own experience.

While some contend that Laing was a charlatan and a self-publicist, this book shows, though, that there are many good reasons why conventional psychiatric diagnosis, care and treatment may be challenged.

  

What people are saying - Write a review

Review: RD Laing

User Review  - Kazuo - Goodreads

This is a worthy attempt at an introduction to RD Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist who's association with anti-psychiatry makes him famous. However, the book is condensed and is too short to provide ... Read full review

Review: RD Laing

User Review - Goodreads

MINT

Related books

R. D. Laing: the man and his ideas
R. D. Laing: the man and his ideas
Richard Isadore Evans,Ronald David Laing
Snippet view - 1976
R. D. Laing: the philosophy and politics of psychotherapy
R. D. Laing: the philosophy and politics of psychotherapy
Andrew Collier
Snippet view - 1977
Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics
Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics
Ronald David Laing
No preview available - 1970
All related books »

Contents

AntiPsychiatry
19
Work and Ideas
41
John Macmurray and the Divided Self
65
Scottish Psychoanalysis
83
Critical Psychiatry
107
Conclusion
131
Copyright

Other editions - View all

R.D. Laing
R.D. Laing
Gavin Miller
Snippet view - 2004
R. D. Laing
R. D. Laing
Gavin Miller
No preview available - 2005

Common terms and phrases

A.S. Neill action Adrian Laing alien analysis anti-psychiatry argues argument attempt attitude behaviour believe biological Bob Mullan bodily causality condition constructions context course critical psychiatry culture Daniel Burston David Cooper depersonalised depression developed deviant disorder distinction Divided Erving Goffman example existence experience explanation father feel Freud Freudian Glasgow Goffman Hearing Voices Network homosexuality human individual institution intelligible interpersonal interpretation John Macmurray Kingsley Hall Laing's ideas live logical Macmurray's Madness mental illness mental patient mind mother MTBN normative notes object ontological insecurity paradigm philosophical problem psychiatric diagnosis psychoanalytic psychology psychotic R.D. Laing RDL-DS recognise refuse regarded relations relationship response Roth and Kroll Scheff schizoid schizophrenic scientific Scotland seems sense sexual social someone Suttie and Fairbairn Suttie's symptoms Tavistock Clinic theory therapeutic therapist therapy Thomas Szasz thought tion treatment truth understanding University validity William Robertson Smith

References to this book

From Google Scholar

Scottish psychoanalysis: A rational religion
Gavin Miller - 2008 - Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Laing and Szasz: Anti-psychiatry, Capitalism, and Therapy
Ron Roberts, Theodor Itten - 2006 - The Psychoanalytic Review
Anti-Psychiatry
Ron Roberts, Theodor Itten - 2006 - Psychoanalytic Review
Notes on the Origins of" Personal Relations Theory" in Aspects of ...
Graham Clarke - 2008 - Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society
All Scholar search results »

References from web pages

SLS · rd Laing Bibliography · Biography & Critique
Full-on first-person account of the 3rd rd Laing Conference, held on 5 March 05 in the ... rd Laing: Contemporary Perspectives, Salman Raschid, Editor. ...
laingsociety.org/ biblio/ critique.htm

rd Laing - FREE rd Laing Biography | Encyclopedia.com: Facts ...
RD Laing – Facts about RD Laing, biography, pictures of RD Laing, videos, and Information at Encyclopedia.com: a free, credible collection of encyclopedias.
www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/ 1E1-Laing-RD.html

Literary Encyclopedia: Sonnets
rd Laing (1979). Daniel Burston, Duquesne University and Gavin Miller, University of ... rd Laing’s literary ambitions culminated in the publication of his ...
www.litencyc.com/ php/ sworks.php?rec=true& UID=16854

I think that for the practitioner Ronnie Laing’s message was that ...
‘What should we do with rd Laing?’ I intend, as you’ve just heard, to try to answer ..... That, I believe, is what we should do with rd Laing. Gavin Miller ...
www.sutherlandtrust.org.uk/ documents/ EdinburghConversation2December2005.doc

Dr Gavin Miller | The English Research Institute - Manchester ...
“‘We are all murderers and prostitutes:’ rd Laing and the work of Alasdair Gray”. 2002. ... The Legacy of rd Laing. Eds Gavin Miller and Brent Dean Robbins. ...
www.eri.mmu.ac.uk/ staff/ profile.php?id=63

rd Laing’s Language of Experience Gavin Miller Despite a revival ...
Despite a revival in psychiatric studies of his writings, the literary importance of the radical Scottish psychiatrist rd Laing has been underestimated in ...
www.clas.ufl.edu/ ipsa/ journal/ articles/ art_miller02.shtml

Janus Head: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Special Issue: The Legacy of rd Laing Spring 2001 ... Comprehending Madness: The Contextualization of Psychopathology in the Worl of rd Laing Brent Potter ...
www.janushead.org/ 4-1/ index.cfm

Psychiatry as Hermeneutics: Laing's Argument With Natural Science ...
The wing of madness: The life and work of rd Laing. ... Mad to be normal: Conversations with rd Laing. London: Free Association. Raschid, S. (2005). ...
jhp.sagepub.com/ cgi/ content/ refs/ 48/ 1/ 42

Online Catalog - rdj
rd Laing: a dialog on mental illness and its treatments Laing, Ronald D. Hagerstown, Md.. ... rd Laing: the philosophy and politics of psychotherapy ...
www.bookmaps.de/ lib/ all/ r/ d/ rdj.html

The Society for Laingian Studies · Search Results
43 · Andrew Feldmár · SLS · Bibliography · rd Laing by Gavin Miller · SLS · Bibliography · Review of the Literature · Ross V. Speck · SLS · Bibliography ...
search.freefind.com/ find.html?id=31112586& m=0& p=0

About the author (2004)

Gavin Miller is research fellow at the Centre for the History of Ideas in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh.

Bibliographic information

QR code for R.D. Laing
TitleR.D. Laing
Edinburgh Review Introduction to Scottish Culture
Edinburgh Review introductions
Edinburgh review
Introductions to Scottish Culture
AuthorGavin Miller
Editionreprint
PublisherEdinburgh University Press, 2004
ISBN1859332706, 9781859332702
Length144 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Biography & Autobiography / Philosophers
History / Europe / Great Britain
Psychology / History
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan