Laing, R. D.

From New World Encyclopedia
 
(26 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Contracted}}{{Status}}
+
{{Copyedited}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Status}}
[[Category: Politics and social sciences]]
+
[[Category: Psychologists]]
[[Category: Psychology]]
+
{{epname|Laing, R. D.}}
[[Category:History and biography]]
 
[[Category: Biography]]
 
{{epname}}
 
  
[[Image:Ronald D. Laing.jpg|right|thumbnail| R.D.Laing. © Robert E. Haraldsen]]
+
[[Image:Ronald D. Laing.jpg|right|thumbnail| Picture of R.D. Laing taken in 1983 in Stockholm onboard Axel Jensen's ship ''Shanti Devi.'' Taken by Robert E. Haraldsen.]]
Ronald David Laing (October 7, 1927 – August 23, 1989), was a British psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness and particularly the experience of psychosis. The development of his unorthodox views stemmed from early professional outrage with some of the practices he considered inhumane, and looked for other ways to reach patients. Influenced by phenomenology and existential philosophy on the causes and treatment of mental illness, his views went against the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time by taking the expressions or communications of the individual patient or client as representing valid descriptions of lived experience or reality rather than as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder. He is often associated with the anti-psychiatry movement although, like many of his contemporaries also critical of
 
psychiatry, he himself rejected this label. He made a significant contribution to the ethics of psychology.
 
  
 +
'''Ronald David Laing,''' or '''R.D. Laing''' as he was known professionally, (October 7, 1927 – August 23, 1989), was a British [[psychiatry|psychiatrist]] who wrote extensively on [[mental illness]], particularly [[psychosis]]. The development of his unorthodox views stemmed from early professional outrage with some of the practices he considered inhumane. Influenced by [[phenomenology]] and [[existentialism|existential philosophy]], his views went against the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time when he took the communications of the patient as representing valid descriptions of their reality rather than as symptoms of some separate, underlying disorder. Although Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, like many of his contemporaries also critical of psychiatry, he himself rejected this label. His work on humane ways to treat psychotic patients made a significant contribution to the [[ethics]] of [[psychology]].
 +
{{toc}}
 
==Biography==
 
==Biography==
Laing was born at 21 Ardbeg Street in the Govanhill district of Glasgow, Scotland as the only child of David Park McNair Laing and Amelia Elizabeth Laing. They were a quiet Presbyterian lower middle class family.  
+
Ronald David Laing was born at 21 Ardbeg Street in the Govanhill district of Glasgow, [[Scotland]] as the only child of David Park McNair Laing and Amelia Elizabeth Laing. They were a quiet, [[Presbyterian]], lower middle class family.  
  
From his own autobiography, he had few friends as a child (Laing, 1985). It is no wonder Laing became a psychiatrist, as the family tensions were monumental.  Both his parents openly detested their own fathers. David fought fiercely with his father. On occasion and in front of little Ronald, sometimes causing injury (Laing, 1976, pp. 4-5). David’s relatives had never approved of Amelia and it is understandable.
+
From his own autobiography, he had few friends as a child and the tensions in his family were monumental (Laing 1985). Both his parents openly detested their own fathers. His father fought fiercely with his own father sometimes causing injury, and on occasion this occurred in front of little Ronald (Laing 1976). David’s relatives never approved of Amelia.
  
His mother was a very complex woman, with very odd behaviors. For an unknown reason, she seems to have concealed her pregnancy up until the day of Ronald’s birth. Laing says from his birth, her decline was rapid. From observations of Laing and his late aunt Ethel, the sister of his father, it seems Amelia was prone to character assassination and being quite devious. She would undertake quite circuitous routes to avoid being in neighborhoods of people unknown to the family, but alleged to have ill-will toward her. When Laing was world famous, for reasons known only to her, she had the tragic habit of sticking pins in her “Ronnie” doll, fashioned after R.D. Laing.
+
His mother Amelia was a complex woman with very odd behaviors. For an unknown reason, she concealed her pregnancy up until the day of Ronald’s birth. Laing wrote that after his birth her decline was rapid. Observations by Laing and his aunt Ethel, the sister of his father, indicated that Amelia was prone to character assassination and quite devious. She would undertake circuitous routes to avoid being in the neighborhoods of people alleged to have ill-will toward her, even when she did not know them. When Laing was world famous, for reasons known only to her, she had the tragic habit of sticking pins in her “Ronnie” doll, fashioned after her son.  
  
Laing’s father, David, was quite a bit more upbeat in comparison. David Laing took great pride in being an engineer in the Royal Tank Corps and Royal Air Corps and worked on various military applications. Immediately after Laing’s birth, he worked for the Corporation of Glasgow until his retirement.  In later years, David came to loathe the military, but was quite resourceful in creating meaning in his life. He was the principal baritone for the Glasgow University Chapel choir. He had a special love for Italian opera and Victorian ballads and was known to welcome Ronald’s friends during his teens and twenties with various musical singalongs and games. Ronald often played the piano at these gatherings with professional skill, although his whole life music remained only a pastime. He received his license for piano from the Royal Academy of Music when he was fourteen years old. In that same year he decided to read everything in the encyclopedia from A to Z, and became very widely read, specifically working through Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau Ponty, Jaspers, Wittgenstein, and Camus (Laing, 1985).  
+
Laing’s father, David, was more upbeat in comparison. David Laing took great pride in being an engineer in the Royal Tank Corps and Royal Air Corps, and he worked on various military applications. In later years, David came to loathe the military, but was quite resourceful in creating meaning in his life. He was the principal baritone for the Glasgow University Chapel choir. He had a special love for Italian [[opera]] and Victorian ballads and was known to entertain Ronald’s friends with various musical singalongs and games. At these gatherings, Ronald often played the [[piano]] with professional skill, although [[music]] remained only a pastime throughout his life. He received his license for piano from the Royal Academy of Music when he was fourteen years old. In that same year he decided to read everything in the encyclopedia from A to Z, and became very widely read, specifically working through [[Nietzsche]], [[Husserl]], [[Heidegger]], [[Sartre]], [[Merleau-Ponty]], [[Karl Jaspers|Jaspers]], [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein]], and [[Albert Camus|Camus]] (Laing 1985).  
 
   
 
   
Laing entered the University of Glasgow when he was seventeen, and later studied medicine, later specializing in psychiatry. He was an army psychiatrist from 1951-1953, where he found he had a particular talent for communicating with mentally distressed people.  
+
Laing entered the University of Glasgow when he was seventeen, and studied [[medicine]], later specializing in [[psychiatry]]. He was an army psychiatrist from 1951 to 1953, where he found he had a particular talent for communicating with mentally distressed people.  
  
The Korean War had scuttled his ideas of studying with Jaspers at Basel, and as an army psychiatrist his chief task was to differentiate the soldiers who were truly disturbed those simply trying to avoid their duty to serve. Some of the policies enraged Laing, who felt they were often cruel, unnecessary and unproductive in healing the patients. In spite of rigid prohibitions on communicating with patients, he found novel ways to develop rapport. He devised a method of sitting quietly with patients in their padded cells, and did not demand anything from the patients, accepted both silence and speech. He did not interrogate them as a conventional psychiatrist would have. He maintained this non-threatening posture in order to allow the patients to open up and express themselves freely. Laing felt that their experiences had validity, and it was important to understand and feel what they were feeling in order to understand their immense fear, misery and confusion. He felt that they could be understood just as they were, and that their self-reports had meaning if given a chance. Thankfully, his superiors took this as a systematic research effort, which is exactly how Laing looked at it.
+
The [[Korean War]] had scuttled his ideas of studying with Jaspers at Basel, and as an army psychiatrist his chief task was to differentiate the soldiers who were truly disturbed from those simply trying to avoid their duty to serve. Some of the policies enraged Laing, who felt they were often cruel, unnecessary, and unproductive in healing the patients. In spite of rigid prohibitions on communicating with patients, he found novel ways to develop rapport. He devised a method of sitting quietly with patients in their padded cells, and did not demand anything from the patients, accepting both silence and speech. He did not interrogate them as a conventional psychiatrist would have. He maintained this non-threatening posture in order to allow the patients to open up and express themselves freely. Laing felt that their experiences had validity, and it was important to understand and feel what they were feeling in order to understand their immense fear, misery, and confusion. He felt that they could be understood just as they were, and that their self-reports had meaning if given a chance. Thankfully, his superiors took this as a systematic research effort, which is exactly how Laing looked at it.
  
In 1953 Laing left the army and worked at Gartnaval Hospital near Glasgow. He worked with the humane psychiatrist, Ferguson Rodger, who was quite interested in new approaches and gave him much encouragement. This is where he started the idea of living together with his patients, and began to get surprisingly good results. During this period he also participated in an existentialism-oriented discussion group in Glasgow, organized by Karl Abenheimer and Joe Schorstein.
+
In 1953, Laing left the army and worked at Gartnaval Hospital near Glasgow. He worked with Ferguson Rodger, a psychiatrist who was quite interested in new approaches and who gave him much encouragement. This is where he started the idea of living together with his patients, and began to get surprisingly good results. During this period he also participated in an existentialism-oriented discussion group in Glasgow, organized by Karl Abenheimer and Joe Schorstein.
  
During the late 1950s he went on to study at the Tavistock Clinic in London, widely known as a centre for the study and practice of psychotherapy (particularly psychoanalysis). At this time, he was associated with D. W. Winnicott and Charles Rycroft, and later John Bowlby, and wrote his first book, The Divided Self.
+
During the late 1950s he went on to study at the Tavistock Clinic in London, widely known as a center for the study and practice of [[psychotherapy]] (particularly [[psychoanalysis]]). At that time he was associated with D. W. Winnicott and Charles Rycroft, and later John Bowlby. He wrote the manuscript of his first book, ''The Divided Self'' while a student there.
  
His graduation from the London Psychoanalytic Institute was to be delayed one year, but with intercession from his clinical supervisors, he graduated on time in 1960.  It is often thought that his ambivalence toward psychoanalysis was an irritant that influenced the l plan to delay his graduation.  The inclusion of phenomenology and existentialism into psychiatry was extremely unconventional for his time and profession.  In the 1960’s he was known to conduct sessions that included LSD therapy.
+
Due to his frustration with traditional psychoanalysis and his unconventional approach, involving the inclusion of [[phenomenology]] and [[existentialism]] into psychiatry, Laing's graduation from the London Psychoanalytic Institute was to be delayed one year. However, with intercession from his clinical supervisors, he graduated on time in 1960.  
  
In 1965 Laing started a psychiatric community project at Kingsley Hall. During this period, his first marriage to Anne Hearne disintegrated leaving him free to further his experiments with therapists and patients living together. The Norwegian author Axel Jensen got to know Laing at this time. They became close friends and Laing often visited Axel Jensen onboard his ship Shanti Devi in Stockholm.
+
In the 1960s, Laing continued his research and published his most influential books. His work continued to be unconventional, including sessions that involved [[LSD]] therapy. He also became known in the popular media, making several television appearances.
  
While still at Kingsley hall, 1967 he wrote his most popular book, The Politics of Experience. The popular Erich Fromm criticized the book in considering adaptation to society as a criterion of mental health. Laing attended a two-week conference on the Dialectics of Liberation with most of the contemporary left-wing thinkers and activists.  This left him somewhat disenchanted with politics.  It is no wonder that in his next book, Knots, he eschewed politics entirely.  
+
In 1965, Laing started a psychiatric community project at Kingsley Hall. During this period, his first marriage to Anne Hearne disintegrated, leaving him free to further his experiments in which therapists and patients lived together. During this period he became close friends with [[Norway|Norwegian]] author Axel Jensen, and Laing often visited him on board his ship ''Shanti Devi'' in Stockholm.  
  
After the Kingsley Hall closed in 1970, the next year Laing took his companion Jutta Werner and their two children to Sri Lanka and India to study Theravedic Buddhist meditation. Half of that time was in Uttar-Pradesh area of India with Swami Gangotri Baba, who remained largely silent and half naked in a wooded valley.  Although meditating, his son Adrian records this as a time of increased drinking.
+
While still at Kingsley hall, he wrote his most popular book, ''The Politics of Experience,'' which [[Erich Fromm]] criticized for considering adaptation to society as a criterion of mental health. Laing attended a two-week conference on the Dialectics of Liberation with most of the contemporary left-wing thinkers and activists. This left him somewhat disenchanted with [[politics]]. It is no wonder that in his next book, ''Knots,'' he eschewed politics entirely.  
  
He returned to London, and did a whirlwind tour of the United States. In trying to work out a new angle on psychology, he ceased to break new ground and rather re-worked current theories of re-birthing from Otto Rank, Elizabeth Fehr and others.  His next two books were not as popular.  Although Jutta and he married in 1971, by 1981 their marriage was dissolving.  He alleged she had had an affair, and a very messy divorce ensued. After the death of a close associate, the next year Philadelphia Association refused to endorse Laing as their chairman anymore, as they felt some of his behavior and his new phase of re-birthing was out of step with their work.
+
After Kingsley Hall closed in 1970, Laing took his companion Jutta Werner and their two children to [[Sri Lanka]] and [[India]] to study [[Theravada Buddhism|Theravada Buddhist]] meditation. Half of that time was spent in the Uttar-Pradesh area of India with Swami Gangotri Baba, who remained largely silent and half naked in a wooded valley. Laing's son, Adrian, recorded this as a time not only spent in meditation but also in increased drinking.  
  
He launched into various auto biographical works that were often full of omissions and errors. Laing was troubled by his own personal problems, suffering both from episodic alcoholism and clinical depression, although he reportedly was free of both in the years before his death. In 1985 he joined with his former secretary, Margarite Romayn-Kendon who remained his companion the rest of his life. They moved to Going, Austria in 1987. In August 1989 on a very hot day, the fiercely competitive R. D. Laing succumbed to a massive heart attack while playing tennis.  It is rumored that he was winning.
+
He returned to London, and then did a lecture tour of the [[United States]] in which he also appeared on television. In trying to work out a new approach, he ceased to break new ground and merely re-worked current theories of re-birthing from [[Otto Rank]], Elizabeth Fehr, and others. His next two books were not as popular. Although Jutta and he married in 1971, by 1981 their marriage was dissolving. He alleged she had had an affair, and a very messy divorce ensued. After the death of a close associate, his personal problems intensified. The next year the Philadelphia Association refused to continue endorsing Laing as their chairman, as they felt some of his behavior and his re-birthing approach were out of step with their work.
  
Four of his five children survived him.
+
In the 1980s, Laing launched into various auto-biographical works that were often full of omissions and errors. He was troubled by his own personal problems, suffering both from episodic [[alcoholism]] and clinical [[depression (Psychology)|depression]], although he reportedly was free of both in the years before his death. In 1985, he joined with his former secretary, Margarite Romayn-Kendon, who remained his companion the rest of his life. They moved to Going, [[Austria]] in 1987. In August 1989, on a very hot day, the fiercely competitive Laing succumbed to a massive heart attack while playing tennis. It is rumored that he was winning.
  
 
==Work==
 
==Work==
  
 
===Laing's view of madness===
 
===Laing's view of madness===
Some have speculated that the intense difficulty and animosity he felt from his mother influenced him to develop an oppositional personality.  In his later years, this was productively channeled in his championing of the mentally ill. 
 
  
Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a 'lose-lose situation' and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. (Laing was familiar with the 1956 theory of  Gregory Bateson that articulated a related theory of schizophrenia as stemming from Double Bind situations.) Madness was therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience.
+
Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a [[psychosis|psychotic]] episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. His view can be seen as similar to Gregory Bateson's theory of [[schizophrenia]] as stemming from "double bind" situations, with which Laing was familiar. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the [[family]], in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a "lose-lose situation" and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. Madness was therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience.
  
This was in stark contrast to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time (and is still contrary to the majority opinion of mainstream psychiatry). Psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers had previously pronounced, in his seminal work General Psychopathology, that the content of madness (and particularly of delusions) were 'un-understandable', and therefore were worthy of little consideration except as a sign of some other underlying primary disorder. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an unusual personal symbolism. According to Laing, if a therapist can better understand the person they can begin to make sense of the symbolism of their madness, and therefore start addressing the concerns which are the root cause of their distress.
+
This view was in stark contrast to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time, and is still contrary to the majority opinion of mainstream [[psychiatry]]. Psychiatrist and philosopher [[Karl Jaspers]] had previously pronounced, in his seminal work ''General Psychopathology,'' that the content of madness, and particularly of delusions, were "un-understandable," and therefore were worthy of little consideration except as a sign of some other underlying primary disorder. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an unusual personal [[symbol]]ism. According to Laing, if a therapist can better understand the person, they can begin to make sense of the symbolism of their madness, and therefore start addressing the concerns that are the root cause of their distress.
  
It is notable that Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but simply viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, madness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The traveler could return from the journey with important insights, and may even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result.
+
It is notable that Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but simply viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, madness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a [[shamanism|shamanic]] journey. The traveler could return from the journey with important insights, and might even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result.
  
Laing was involved in research linking development of psychosis to family background. Despite supporting evidence, this has been controversial ever since, and the influence of parents who feel 'blamed' for a child's diagnosis of schizophrenia accounts for most of Laing's unpopularity in many circles. It was an inappropriate attribution by commentators who had not grasped the breadth of Laing's view of the nature of pathogenesis in families. He maintained throughout his career that parents are equally mystified, and unaware of the disturbed nature of the patterns of communication. Laing's most enduring and practically beneficial contribution to mental health, however, is probably his co-founding and chairmanship in 1964 of the Philadelphia Association and the wider movement of therapeutic communities, adopted in more effective and less confrontational psychiatric settings.  Oddly enough, in current times the Philadelphia Association has come to embrace other difficulties quite different from mental illness, such as autism.
+
Laing's research linked the development of psychosis to family background. Despite supporting evidence, this generated significant controversy and the influence of parents who felt "blamed" for a child's diagnosis of schizophrenia accounts for much of Laing's unpopularity in many circles. In fact, such blame was an inappropriate attribution by commentators who had not grasped the breadth of his view of the nature of pathogenesis in families. Laing maintained throughout his career that parents are equally mystified and unaware of the disturbed nature of the patterns of [[communication]].  
  
Laing is often regarded as an important figure in the anti-psychiatry movement, along with David Cooper and Michel Foucault. However, like many of his contemporaries, labeling him as 'anti-psychiatry' is a caricature of his stated views. Laing never denied the value of treating mental distress, but simply wanted to challenge the core values of contemporary psychiatry which considered (and some would say still considers) mental illness as primarily a biological phenomenon of no intrinsic value.  
+
Laing developed a phenomenological methodology that involved utilizing rigorous scientific principles in the examination of internal process. In the phenomenological approach, self report is assumed valid and then must be proved through the subsequent events, as opposed to the more materialistic approach of first requiring data that can be measured in the physical world. In ''The Divided Self, Self and Others'' (1961) and ''The Politics of Experience'' (1967), Laing reproached [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] and his followers for aligning [[psychoanalysis]] with the natural sciences in order to secure a measure of respectability for the new discipline. In its place, he proposed a rigorous "science of persons,” or an "interpersonal phenomenology" that, while allowing for the existence of the [[unconscious]], owed as much to [[Hegel]], [[Kierkegaard]], [[Husserl]], [[Heidegger]], [[Martin Buber|Buber]] and, above all, [[Sartre]], as it did to Freud and his followers.
 +
 
 +
Laing was regarded as an important figure in the anti-psychiatry movement, along with David Cooper and [[Michel Foucault]]. However, like many of his contemporaries, labeling him as "anti-psychiatry" was a caricature of his stated views. Laing never denied the value of treating mental distress, but simply wanted to challenge the core values of psychiatry, which considered mental illness as primarily a [[biology|biological]] phenomenon and that the thoughts and images of patients had no intrinsic value in understanding and assisting the healing process.
  
 
===Key concepts===
 
===Key concepts===
  
 
====Ontological insecurity====
 
====Ontological insecurity====
In 'The Divided Self' Laing explains how we all exist in the world as beings, defined by others who carry a model of us in their heads, just as we carry models of them in our heads. In later writings he often takes this to deeper levels, laboriously spelling out how 'A knows that B knows that A knows that B knows ....'! Our feelings and motivations derive very much from this condition of 'being in the world' in the sense of existing for others, who exist for us. Without this we suffer 'ontological insecurity', a condition often expressed in terms of 'being dead' by people who are clearly still physically alive. This may explain why in some biographical material it is said that Laing said his mother died when he was fifteen; as she did not do so literally.
+
In ''The Divided Self,'' Laing explained how we all exist in the world as beings, defined by others who carry a model of us in their heads, just as we carry models of them in our heads. Our [[emotion|feelings]] and [[motivation]]s derive very much from this condition of "being in the world" in the sense of existing for others, who exist for us. In later writings he often took this to deeper levels, laboriously spelling out how ''A knows that B knows that A knows that B knows…'' Without this, we suffer "ontological insecurity," a condition often expressed in terms of "being dead" by people who are clearly still physically alive. This may explain why in some biographical material, Laing said his mother died when he was fifteen, as she did not die literally at that time.
  
In The Divided Self, Self and Others (1961) and The Politics of Experience (1967) Laing reproached Freud and his followers for aligning psychoanalysis with the natural sciences in order to secure a measure of respectability for his new discipline. In its place, he proposed a rigorous "science of persons”, or an "interpersonal phenomenology" which, while allowing for the existence of "the unconscious", owed as much to Hegel, Kierkegaard, Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger, Buber and, above all, Sartre, as it did to Freud and his followers. The acceptance of self- report as valid data necessary in a phenomenological approach was out of fashion in the predominant view of scientific method accepted in his time.
+
====Family nexus====
 +
''Sanity, Madness and the Family'' contains accounts of several families, analyzing how their members see each other and what they actually communicate to each other. Laing used the term "family nexus" to describe the consensus view within the family to which all members expected to adhere. He claimed that this nexus is a powerful determinant of individual mental health. The startling way in which lies are perpetuated in the interest of family politics rings true to many readers from "normal" families, and Laing's view is that in some cases these lies are so strongly maintained as to make it impossible for a vulnerable child to be able to determine what truth actually is, let alone the truth of their own situation.  
  
====Family nexus====
+
This was the basis for his approach to [[psychotherapy]], as in the case of his most famous patient, Mary Barnes, a professional nurse who entered Kingsley Hall in 1965. She was exceptionally articulate and helpful in substantiating Laing's claims, and her case seemed to prove the importance of family nexus.
In “Sanity, Madness and the Family” Laing and Esterton give accounts of several families, analyzing how their members see each other and what they actually communicate to each other. The startling way in which lies are perpetuated in the interest of family politics rings true to many readers from "normal" families, and Laing's view is that in some cases these lies are so strongly maintained as to make it impossible for a vulnerable child to be able to determine what truth actually is, let alone what the truth of their situation is.
 
  
He uses the term 'family nexus' to describe the consensus view within the family, but from there on much of his writing appears ambivalent, as Andrew Collier has pointed out in The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy. One strand of Laing's thinking, in his earlier career is traceable to Marx and Sartre.  Laing condemns society for shackling mankind against its will, taking away individual freedom. Left to his own devices, man is healthy, and the mad are just trying to find their way back to their natural state. This was the basis for his approach to psychotherapy, as in the case of his most famous 'patient' Mary Barnes.
+
In some of Laing's writing he apparently extended the concept of family nexus to the society, as Andrew Collier pointed out in his book, ''The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy.'' In a strand of thinking traceable to [[Karl Marx|Marx]], Laing condemned society for shackling mankind against its will, taking away individual freedom. Left to his own devices, man is healthy, and the mad are just trying to find their way back to their natural state. However, Laing did not develop this societal continuation of family nexus in his later work, and so it is unclear what his ultimate view of the impact of the greater society is on [[psychosis]].
  
 
====Double bind====
 
====Double bind====
Yet it is the very need for ontological security which Laing exposed in his first book which is the driving force that builds societies. Laing correctly exposed the family nexus as often placing children in a 'double bind', unable to obey conflicting injunctions from family members, and he does not 'blame' those family members, pointing out that they are in turn victims of their own family. He fails, however to get to the bottom of the problem and find a way out for his patients. Freud, by comparison, recognizes the repressive effect of society, especially in his later works like 'Civilization and its Discontents', but seeks to strengthen the patient's ability to cope with this. Neither of these men appeared willing to tackle the issue of good and bad family, or society, nexus.
+
In ''The Divided Self,'' Laing exposed the family nexus as often placing children in a "double bind," where they receive conflicting injunctions from family members. Yet it is the very need for ontological security, which should come from within the family that is the driving force that builds societies. Laing did not "blame" family members, rather he pointed out that they are in turn victims of their own family. He failed, however, to get to the bottom of the problem and find a way out for his patients. [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]], by comparison, not only recognized the repressive effect of society, especially in his later works like ''Civilization and its Discontents,'' but also sought to strengthen his patients' ability to cope with this. However, neither Laing nor Freud appeared willing to tackle the issue of the good and bad nexus, whether on the family or societal level.  
  
The real double bind, Collier seems to suggest, is that we all need to exist in a nexus, but sometimes the only one we've got is not one we can continue to exist with.
+
The real double bind, Collier seemed to suggest, is that we all need to exist in a nexus, but sometimes the only one we have is one in which we cannot continue to exist.
  
 
==Critique==
 
==Critique==
R. D. Laing's work over the years changed as his interests led him from one aspect to another.  One could say that his response to such a difficult early family life helped him form not only some of his views but also his inclusion of less than orthodox methodology.
 
  
His advocacy of empathy with those with psychosis and inclusion of the necessity of kindness and authenticity from the therapist included a realm of emotional intelligence that was not recognized fully until the 1990's.  The innovation of his methods of non-demanding observation as a valid source of information put so much more responsibility upon the therapist, one he seemed to shoulder with great personal courage.
+
R. D. Laing's work over the years changed as his interests led him from one aspect to another of the problems of personal happiness and mental health. One could say that this was his response to his difficult early family life, which probably helped him form his approach that rejected dogmatic adherence to a dysfunctional status quo, and to be open to innovate with less than orthodox methodology.
  
He remained very opposed to the over-extensive usage of surgical and electro-shock treatments, and through the possibility of other treatments he presented helped publicize the issues. His popular following stimulated many other projects that helped terminate the injudicious over0use of such treatments. He did however, support the usage of various pharmacological treatments to help patients recover and no doubt influenced the trend continuing through the next century to aid recovery in various mental illness with drugs.
+
Laing's view of psychosis as an expression of the reality experienced by his patients is not only innovative but also intriguing. He believed that psychosis is an experience of a reality that differs from the "normal" reality experienced by the "sane" members of society, a kind of journey into a different realm. For those who take his view seriously, it implies that others could take that same journey and possibly broaden the understanding of human existence. However, Laing failed to clarify the exact nature of this different realm, how to enter it, and how to leave it. His attempts to characterize the family nexus as the source of entry into this realm leave readers as mystified as the family members themselves as to how such a situation developed and how to resolve it.
  
Phenomenology was dead in the modern intellectual circles, but his rigorous personal methodology and application of basic scientific principles in an area heretofore untried yielded substantiation previously unobtainable.  The ability to measure results in the physical world had become the mantra of all science in the 2other century.  The studies on the families of those with psychosis initiated after the Tavistock clinic experience still are cited and re-worked. These were his studies on family relationships and their connection to insanity.  This idea received extremely heavy criticism, was attacked unjustly probably because of the immense emotional burden faced within families where a member has a psychotic break. R. D. Laing himself sympathized with families and stated how they themselves did not understand the dysfunctional relationships, but continues to be mis-represented. Until his work, the inclusion of any kind of anecdotal evidence was fought.  His work provided very substantial results that has kept these methodologies alive within the modern realm of thought.
+
His advocacy of [[empathy]] with those with [[psychosis]], and the necessity of kindness and authenticity from the therapist, put great responsibility upon the therapist, one he seemed to shoulder with great personal courage, although later in his career he no longer seemed able to do so. He succumbed to his tendency to alcoholism and was forced to resign from the Philadelphia Association, eventually losing his license to practice medicine due to his unprofessional conduct.  
  
He connected the importance of personal thought and mental illness, which influenced the development of the trends in psychological therapies that include life-coaching and shor-term behavior education. Although usually not applied in the extreme cases Laing worked with, both of these methodologies rely of the personal choices and behaviors of the "patient" which he advocated and is a major shift in orientation away from the therapist centered traditional Freudian psychotherapy. His personal search in mediation and eastern philosophy gave mroe credance to the importance of personal thought and personal well being.
+
Laing was, and still is, extremely controversial. Many wanted to dismiss him as being as crazy as his patients, yet other respected professionals still defend him to the end. The quality of his work in the later part of his life was simply odd. His personal problems and biographical omissions, errors, and oblique references, that were very hard to understand, undermined his previous credibility. His lack of innovation toward the end of his career also diminished his reputation. Still, he left a substantial legacy and significant impact on [[psychology]].
  
 
==Legacy==
 
==Legacy==
R. D. Laing was very well educated in the academic issues within pshychiatry, and his thought unusually systematic and logical. When he broached unconventional topics, it was hard to oppose precisely because it was so very well thought out. He was innovative and concerned for the task at hand, the healing of people. Somehow, his empathetic understanding of the needs and complexity found within human relationship struck a chord and was completly the right thought at the right time as many websites, books and journals still reference and discuss his work more than twenty years later.
+
 
 +
Laing's work focused on the understanding and treatment of [[psychosis]], but his legacy is much broader.
 +
 
 +
His most enduring and practically beneficial contribution to mental health is his co-founding, in 1964, and chairmanship of the Philadelphia Association, and the wider movement of therapeutic communities that adopted more effective and less confrontational psychiatric settings.  
 +
 
 +
His introduction of [[empathy]] and involvement by the therapist continues to impact psychological thought and practice. This was a drastic change from the previous view of "scientific" distance and impartiality as necessary. Laing advocated that a therapist must be unequivocally in favor of the well-being of the patient, and that the patient must recognize this in order for any therapy to be effective.
 +
 
 +
The ability to measure results in the physical world had become the mantra of all science in the twentieth century. Thus, the anecdotal methodology of phenomenology had no place in such intellectual circles until Laing's rigorous personal methodology and application of scientific principles brought the substantiation necessary to make it viable within psychology.
 +
 
 +
Laing was very opposed to the over-extensive usage of surgical and electro-shock treatments. His publicizing of the possibility of other treatments helped research into more humane treatments. He did however, support the usage of various pharmacological treatments to help patients recover, which no doubt led to increased usage of drug therapy for psychosis.
 +
 
 +
He connected the importance of personal thought and mental illness, which influenced the development of trends in [[life-coaching]] and [[marriage education]] (as opposed to therapy). Laing's personal search in [[meditation]] and [[Eastern philosophy]] also stimulated exploration into other methodologies to improve mental health.
 +
 
 +
Laing was a valiant pioneer in efforts to humanize treatment of the mentally ill, and, although suffering personal difficulties that ultimately affected his work and his credibility, his empathetic understanding of the importance of the complex network of human relationships struck a chord and was the right thought at the right time. His legacy lives on, and his work continues to be discussed and debated widely.
  
 
==Selected bibliography==
 
==Selected bibliography==
* Laing, R.D. (1960) ''The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness''. Harmondsworth: Penguin.  
+
* Laing, R.D. 1960. ''The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness.'' Harmondsworth: Penguin.  
* Laing, R.D. and Esterson, A. (1964) ''Sanity, Madness and the Family''. London: Penguin Books.
+
* Laing, R.D., and A. Esterson. 1964. ''Sanity, Madness and the Family.'' London: Penguin Books.
* Laing, R.D. and Cooper, D.G. (1964) ''Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy''. (2nd ed.) London: Tavistock Publications Ltd.
+
* Laing, R.D., and D.G. Cooper. 1964. ''Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy,'' 2nd ed. London: Tavistock.
* Laing, R.D., Phillipson, H. and Lee, A.R. (1966) ''Interpersonal Perception: A Theory and a Method of Research''. London: Tavistock.
+
* Laing, R.D., H. Phillipson, and A.R. Lee. 1966. ''Interpersonal Perception: A Theory and a Method of Research.'' London: Tavistock.
* Laing, R.D. (1967) ''The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise''. Harmondsworth: Penguin.  
+
* Laing, R.D. 1967. ''The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise.'' Harmondsworth: Penguin.  
* Laing, R.D. (1969) ''Self and Others''. (2nd ed.) London: Penguin Books.  
+
* Laing, R.D. 1969. ''Self and Others,'' 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books.  
* Laing, R.D. (1970) ''Knots''. London: Penguin.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1970. ''Knots.'' London: Penguin.
* Laing, R.D. (1971) ''The Politics of the Family and Other Essays''. London: Tavistock Publications.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1971. ''The Politics of the Family and Other Essays.'' London: Tavistock.
* Laing, R.D. (1976) ''Do You Love Me? An Entertainment in Conversation and Verse'' New York: Pantheon Books.  
+
* Laing, R.D. 1976. ''Do You Love Me? An Entertainment in Conversation and Verse.'' New York: Pantheon Books.  
* Laing, R.D. (1976) ''Sonnets''. London: Michael Joseph.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1976. ''Sonnets.'' London: Michael Joseph.
* Laing, R.D. (1976) ''The Facts of Life''. London: Penguin.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1976. ''The Facts of Life.'' London: Penguin.
* Laing, R.D. (1977) ''Conversations with Adam and Natasha''. New York: Pantheon.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1977. ''Conversations with Adam and Natasha.'' New York: Pantheon.
* Laing, R.D. (1982) ''The Voice of Experience: Experience, Science and Psychiatry''. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1982. ''The Voice of Experience: Experience, Science and Psychiatry.'' Harmondsworth: Penguin.
* Laing, R.D. (1985) ''Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-1957''. London: Macmillan.
+
* Laing, R.D. 1985. ''Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927–1957.'' London: Macmillan.
* Mullan, B. (1995) ''Mad to be Normal: Conversations with R.D. Laing''. London: Free Association Books.
+
* Mullan, B. 1995. ''Mad to be Normal: Conversations with R.D. Laing.'' London: Free Association Books.
  
 
== Books on R.D. Laing ==
 
== Books on R.D. Laing ==
* Barnes, M. and Berke, J. (1971) ''Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness''. London: MacGibbon and Kee. (Personal Report from a Kingsley Hall patient and her therapist)
+
* Barnes, M., and J. Berke. 1971. ''Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness.'' London: MacGibbon and Kee. (Personal report from a Kingsley Hall patient and her therapist)
* Boyers, R. and R. Orrill, Eds. (1971) ''Laing and Anti-Psychiatry''. New York: Salamagundi Press.
+
* Boyers, R., and R. Orrill, eds. 1971. ''Laing and Anti-Psychiatry.'' New York: Salamagundi Press.
* Burston, D. (1996) ''The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R. D. Laing''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
+
* Burston, D. 1996. ''The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R. D. Laing.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* Burston, D. (2000) ''The Crucible of Experience: R.D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  
+
* Burston, D. 2000. ''The Crucible of Experience: R.D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  
* Clay, J. (1996) ''R.D. Laing: A Divided Self''. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
+
* Clay, J. 1996. ''R.D. Laing: A Divided Self.'' London: Hodder & Stoughton.
* Collier, A. (1977) ''R.D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy''. New York: Pantheon.
+
* Collier, A. 1977. ''R.D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy.'' New York: Pantheon.
* Evans, R.I. (1976) ''R.D. Laing, The Man and His Ideas''. New York: E.P. Dutton.
+
* Evans, R.I. 1976. ''R.D. Laing, The Man and His Ideas.'' New York: E.P. Dutton.
* Friedenberg, E.Z. (1973) ''R.D. Laing''. New York: Viking Press.
+
* Friedenberg, E.Z. 1973. ''R.D. Laing.'' New York: Viking Press.
* Kotowicz, Z. (1977) ''R.D. Laing and the Paths of Anti-Psychiatry''. London: Taylor & Francis.
+
* Kotowicz, Z. 1977. ''R.D. Laing and the Paths of Anti-Psychiatry.'' London: Taylor & Francis.
* Miller, G. (2004) ''R.D. Laing''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
+
* Miller, G. 2004. ''R.D. Laing.'' Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
* Laing, A. (1994) ''R.D. Laing: A Biography''. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.
+
* Laing, A. 1994. ''R.D. Laing: A Biography.'' New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.
* Mullan, B. (1999) ''R.D. Laing: A Personal View''. London: Duckworth.  
+
* Mullan, B. 1999. ''R.D. Laing: A Personal View.'' London: Duckworth.  
* Mullan, B., Ed. (1997) ''R.D. Laing: Creative Destroyer''. London: Cassell & Co.
+
* Mullan, B., ed. 1997. ''R.D. Laing: Creative Destroyer.'' London: Cassell & Co.
* Raschid, S., Ed. (2005) ''R.D. Laing: Contemporary Perspectives''. London: Free Association Books.  
+
* Raschid, S., ed. 2005. ''R.D. Laing: Contemporary Perspectives.'' London: Free Association Books.  
* Russell, R. and R.D. Laing (1992) ''R.D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love''. New York: Hillgarth Press.
+
* Russell, R., and R.D. Laing. 1992. ''R.D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love.'' New York: Hillgarth Press.
  
 
== Films on R.D. Laing ==
 
== Films on R.D. Laing ==
Line 125: Line 135:
 
* ''Did You Used to be R.D. Laing?'' (1988). A documentary by Tom Shandel and Kirk Tougas mainly consisting of a series of lectures and interviews conducted at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
 
* ''Did You Used to be R.D. Laing?'' (1988). A documentary by Tom Shandel and Kirk Tougas mainly consisting of a series of lectures and interviews conducted at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
  
==External links==
 
* [http://www.laingsociety.org/ The Society for Laingian Studies]
 
* [http://www.laingsociety.org/giardino/ R.D. Laing Discussion forum]
 
* [http://www.laingsociety.org/biograph.htm Biography at The Society for Laingian Studies]
 
  
  
  
 
{{Credit|38183192}}
 
{{Credit|38183192}}

Latest revision as of 09:37, 17 June 2019

Picture of R.D. Laing taken in 1983 in Stockholm onboard Axel Jensen's ship Shanti Devi. Taken by Robert E. Haraldsen.

Ronald David Laing, or R.D. Laing as he was known professionally, (October 7, 1927 – August 23, 1989), was a British psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness, particularly psychosis. The development of his unorthodox views stemmed from early professional outrage with some of the practices he considered inhumane. Influenced by phenomenology and existential philosophy, his views went against the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time when he took the communications of the patient as representing valid descriptions of their reality rather than as symptoms of some separate, underlying disorder. Although Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, like many of his contemporaries also critical of psychiatry, he himself rejected this label. His work on humane ways to treat psychotic patients made a significant contribution to the ethics of psychology.

Biography

Ronald David Laing was born at 21 Ardbeg Street in the Govanhill district of Glasgow, Scotland as the only child of David Park McNair Laing and Amelia Elizabeth Laing. They were a quiet, Presbyterian, lower middle class family.

From his own autobiography, he had few friends as a child and the tensions in his family were monumental (Laing 1985). Both his parents openly detested their own fathers. His father fought fiercely with his own father sometimes causing injury, and on occasion this occurred in front of little Ronald (Laing 1976). David’s relatives never approved of Amelia.

His mother Amelia was a complex woman with very odd behaviors. For an unknown reason, she concealed her pregnancy up until the day of Ronald’s birth. Laing wrote that after his birth her decline was rapid. Observations by Laing and his aunt Ethel, the sister of his father, indicated that Amelia was prone to character assassination and quite devious. She would undertake circuitous routes to avoid being in the neighborhoods of people alleged to have ill-will toward her, even when she did not know them. When Laing was world famous, for reasons known only to her, she had the tragic habit of sticking pins in her “Ronnie” doll, fashioned after her son.

Laing’s father, David, was more upbeat in comparison. David Laing took great pride in being an engineer in the Royal Tank Corps and Royal Air Corps, and he worked on various military applications. In later years, David came to loathe the military, but was quite resourceful in creating meaning in his life. He was the principal baritone for the Glasgow University Chapel choir. He had a special love for Italian opera and Victorian ballads and was known to entertain Ronald’s friends with various musical singalongs and games. At these gatherings, Ronald often played the piano with professional skill, although music remained only a pastime throughout his life. He received his license for piano from the Royal Academy of Music when he was fourteen years old. In that same year he decided to read everything in the encyclopedia from A to Z, and became very widely read, specifically working through Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, Wittgenstein, and Camus (Laing 1985).

Laing entered the University of Glasgow when he was seventeen, and studied medicine, later specializing in psychiatry. He was an army psychiatrist from 1951 to 1953, where he found he had a particular talent for communicating with mentally distressed people.

The Korean War had scuttled his ideas of studying with Jaspers at Basel, and as an army psychiatrist his chief task was to differentiate the soldiers who were truly disturbed from those simply trying to avoid their duty to serve. Some of the policies enraged Laing, who felt they were often cruel, unnecessary, and unproductive in healing the patients. In spite of rigid prohibitions on communicating with patients, he found novel ways to develop rapport. He devised a method of sitting quietly with patients in their padded cells, and did not demand anything from the patients, accepting both silence and speech. He did not interrogate them as a conventional psychiatrist would have. He maintained this non-threatening posture in order to allow the patients to open up and express themselves freely. Laing felt that their experiences had validity, and it was important to understand and feel what they were feeling in order to understand their immense fear, misery, and confusion. He felt that they could be understood just as they were, and that their self-reports had meaning if given a chance. Thankfully, his superiors took this as a systematic research effort, which is exactly how Laing looked at it.

In 1953, Laing left the army and worked at Gartnaval Hospital near Glasgow. He worked with Ferguson Rodger, a psychiatrist who was quite interested in new approaches and who gave him much encouragement. This is where he started the idea of living together with his patients, and began to get surprisingly good results. During this period he also participated in an existentialism-oriented discussion group in Glasgow, organized by Karl Abenheimer and Joe Schorstein.

During the late 1950s he went on to study at the Tavistock Clinic in London, widely known as a center for the study and practice of psychotherapy (particularly psychoanalysis). At that time he was associated with D. W. Winnicott and Charles Rycroft, and later John Bowlby. He wrote the manuscript of his first book, The Divided Self while a student there.

Due to his frustration with traditional psychoanalysis and his unconventional approach, involving the inclusion of phenomenology and existentialism into psychiatry, Laing's graduation from the London Psychoanalytic Institute was to be delayed one year. However, with intercession from his clinical supervisors, he graduated on time in 1960.

In the 1960s, Laing continued his research and published his most influential books. His work continued to be unconventional, including sessions that involved LSD therapy. He also became known in the popular media, making several television appearances.

In 1965, Laing started a psychiatric community project at Kingsley Hall. During this period, his first marriage to Anne Hearne disintegrated, leaving him free to further his experiments in which therapists and patients lived together. During this period he became close friends with Norwegian author Axel Jensen, and Laing often visited him on board his ship Shanti Devi in Stockholm.

While still at Kingsley hall, he wrote his most popular book, The Politics of Experience, which Erich Fromm criticized for considering adaptation to society as a criterion of mental health. Laing attended a two-week conference on the Dialectics of Liberation with most of the contemporary left-wing thinkers and activists. This left him somewhat disenchanted with politics. It is no wonder that in his next book, Knots, he eschewed politics entirely.

After Kingsley Hall closed in 1970, Laing took his companion Jutta Werner and their two children to Sri Lanka and India to study Theravada Buddhist meditation. Half of that time was spent in the Uttar-Pradesh area of India with Swami Gangotri Baba, who remained largely silent and half naked in a wooded valley. Laing's son, Adrian, recorded this as a time not only spent in meditation but also in increased drinking.

He returned to London, and then did a lecture tour of the United States in which he also appeared on television. In trying to work out a new approach, he ceased to break new ground and merely re-worked current theories of re-birthing from Otto Rank, Elizabeth Fehr, and others. His next two books were not as popular. Although Jutta and he married in 1971, by 1981 their marriage was dissolving. He alleged she had had an affair, and a very messy divorce ensued. After the death of a close associate, his personal problems intensified. The next year the Philadelphia Association refused to continue endorsing Laing as their chairman, as they felt some of his behavior and his re-birthing approach were out of step with their work.

In the 1980s, Laing launched into various auto-biographical works that were often full of omissions and errors. He was troubled by his own personal problems, suffering both from episodic alcoholism and clinical depression, although he reportedly was free of both in the years before his death. In 1985, he joined with his former secretary, Margarite Romayn-Kendon, who remained his companion the rest of his life. They moved to Going, Austria in 1987. In August 1989, on a very hot day, the fiercely competitive Laing succumbed to a massive heart attack while playing tennis. It is rumored that he was winning.

Work

Laing's view of madness

Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. His view can be seen as similar to Gregory Bateson's theory of schizophrenia as stemming from "double bind" situations, with which Laing was familiar. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a "lose-lose situation" and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. Madness was therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience.

This view was in stark contrast to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time, and is still contrary to the majority opinion of mainstream psychiatry. Psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers had previously pronounced, in his seminal work General Psychopathology, that the content of madness, and particularly of delusions, were "un-understandable," and therefore were worthy of little consideration except as a sign of some other underlying primary disorder. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behavior and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an unusual personal symbolism. According to Laing, if a therapist can better understand the person, they can begin to make sense of the symbolism of their madness, and therefore start addressing the concerns that are the root cause of their distress.

It is notable that Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but simply viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, madness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The traveler could return from the journey with important insights, and might even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result.

Laing's research linked the development of psychosis to family background. Despite supporting evidence, this generated significant controversy and the influence of parents who felt "blamed" for a child's diagnosis of schizophrenia accounts for much of Laing's unpopularity in many circles. In fact, such blame was an inappropriate attribution by commentators who had not grasped the breadth of his view of the nature of pathogenesis in families. Laing maintained throughout his career that parents are equally mystified and unaware of the disturbed nature of the patterns of communication.

Laing developed a phenomenological methodology that involved utilizing rigorous scientific principles in the examination of internal process. In the phenomenological approach, self report is assumed valid and then must be proved through the subsequent events, as opposed to the more materialistic approach of first requiring data that can be measured in the physical world. In The Divided Self, Self and Others (1961) and The Politics of Experience (1967), Laing reproached Freud and his followers for aligning psychoanalysis with the natural sciences in order to secure a measure of respectability for the new discipline. In its place, he proposed a rigorous "science of persons,” or an "interpersonal phenomenology" that, while allowing for the existence of the unconscious, owed as much to Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Buber and, above all, Sartre, as it did to Freud and his followers.

Laing was regarded as an important figure in the anti-psychiatry movement, along with David Cooper and Michel Foucault. However, like many of his contemporaries, labeling him as "anti-psychiatry" was a caricature of his stated views. Laing never denied the value of treating mental distress, but simply wanted to challenge the core values of psychiatry, which considered mental illness as primarily a biological phenomenon and that the thoughts and images of patients had no intrinsic value in understanding and assisting the healing process.

Key concepts

Ontological insecurity

In The Divided Self, Laing explained how we all exist in the world as beings, defined by others who carry a model of us in their heads, just as we carry models of them in our heads. Our feelings and motivations derive very much from this condition of "being in the world" in the sense of existing for others, who exist for us. In later writings he often took this to deeper levels, laboriously spelling out how A knows that B knows that A knows that B knows… Without this, we suffer "ontological insecurity," a condition often expressed in terms of "being dead" by people who are clearly still physically alive. This may explain why in some biographical material, Laing said his mother died when he was fifteen, as she did not die literally at that time.

Family nexus

Sanity, Madness and the Family contains accounts of several families, analyzing how their members see each other and what they actually communicate to each other. Laing used the term "family nexus" to describe the consensus view within the family to which all members expected to adhere. He claimed that this nexus is a powerful determinant of individual mental health. The startling way in which lies are perpetuated in the interest of family politics rings true to many readers from "normal" families, and Laing's view is that in some cases these lies are so strongly maintained as to make it impossible for a vulnerable child to be able to determine what truth actually is, let alone the truth of their own situation.

This was the basis for his approach to psychotherapy, as in the case of his most famous patient, Mary Barnes, a professional nurse who entered Kingsley Hall in 1965. She was exceptionally articulate and helpful in substantiating Laing's claims, and her case seemed to prove the importance of family nexus.

In some of Laing's writing he apparently extended the concept of family nexus to the society, as Andrew Collier pointed out in his book, The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy. In a strand of thinking traceable to Marx, Laing condemned society for shackling mankind against its will, taking away individual freedom. Left to his own devices, man is healthy, and the mad are just trying to find their way back to their natural state. However, Laing did not develop this societal continuation of family nexus in his later work, and so it is unclear what his ultimate view of the impact of the greater society is on psychosis.

Double bind

In The Divided Self, Laing exposed the family nexus as often placing children in a "double bind," where they receive conflicting injunctions from family members. Yet it is the very need for ontological security, which should come from within the family that is the driving force that builds societies. Laing did not "blame" family members, rather he pointed out that they are in turn victims of their own family. He failed, however, to get to the bottom of the problem and find a way out for his patients. Freud, by comparison, not only recognized the repressive effect of society, especially in his later works like Civilization and its Discontents, but also sought to strengthen his patients' ability to cope with this. However, neither Laing nor Freud appeared willing to tackle the issue of the good and bad nexus, whether on the family or societal level.

The real double bind, Collier seemed to suggest, is that we all need to exist in a nexus, but sometimes the only one we have is one in which we cannot continue to exist.

Critique

R. D. Laing's work over the years changed as his interests led him from one aspect to another of the problems of personal happiness and mental health. One could say that this was his response to his difficult early family life, which probably helped him form his approach that rejected dogmatic adherence to a dysfunctional status quo, and to be open to innovate with less than orthodox methodology.

Laing's view of psychosis as an expression of the reality experienced by his patients is not only innovative but also intriguing. He believed that psychosis is an experience of a reality that differs from the "normal" reality experienced by the "sane" members of society, a kind of journey into a different realm. For those who take his view seriously, it implies that others could take that same journey and possibly broaden the understanding of human existence. However, Laing failed to clarify the exact nature of this different realm, how to enter it, and how to leave it. His attempts to characterize the family nexus as the source of entry into this realm leave readers as mystified as the family members themselves as to how such a situation developed and how to resolve it.

His advocacy of empathy with those with psychosis, and the necessity of kindness and authenticity from the therapist, put great responsibility upon the therapist, one he seemed to shoulder with great personal courage, although later in his career he no longer seemed able to do so. He succumbed to his tendency to alcoholism and was forced to resign from the Philadelphia Association, eventually losing his license to practice medicine due to his unprofessional conduct.

Laing was, and still is, extremely controversial. Many wanted to dismiss him as being as crazy as his patients, yet other respected professionals still defend him to the end. The quality of his work in the later part of his life was simply odd. His personal problems and biographical omissions, errors, and oblique references, that were very hard to understand, undermined his previous credibility. His lack of innovation toward the end of his career also diminished his reputation. Still, he left a substantial legacy and significant impact on psychology.

Legacy

Laing's work focused on the understanding and treatment of psychosis, but his legacy is much broader.

His most enduring and practically beneficial contribution to mental health is his co-founding, in 1964, and chairmanship of the Philadelphia Association, and the wider movement of therapeutic communities that adopted more effective and less confrontational psychiatric settings.

His introduction of empathy and involvement by the therapist continues to impact psychological thought and practice. This was a drastic change from the previous view of "scientific" distance and impartiality as necessary. Laing advocated that a therapist must be unequivocally in favor of the well-being of the patient, and that the patient must recognize this in order for any therapy to be effective.

The ability to measure results in the physical world had become the mantra of all science in the twentieth century. Thus, the anecdotal methodology of phenomenology had no place in such intellectual circles until Laing's rigorous personal methodology and application of scientific principles brought the substantiation necessary to make it viable within psychology.

Laing was very opposed to the over-extensive usage of surgical and electro-shock treatments. His publicizing of the possibility of other treatments helped research into more humane treatments. He did however, support the usage of various pharmacological treatments to help patients recover, which no doubt led to increased usage of drug therapy for psychosis.

He connected the importance of personal thought and mental illness, which influenced the development of trends in life-coaching and marriage education (as opposed to therapy). Laing's personal search in meditation and Eastern philosophy also stimulated exploration into other methodologies to improve mental health.

Laing was a valiant pioneer in efforts to humanize treatment of the mentally ill, and, although suffering personal difficulties that ultimately affected his work and his credibility, his empathetic understanding of the importance of the complex network of human relationships struck a chord and was the right thought at the right time. His legacy lives on, and his work continues to be discussed and debated widely.

Selected bibliography

  • Laing, R.D. 1960. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  • Laing, R.D., and A. Esterson. 1964. Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Penguin Books.
  • Laing, R.D., and D.G. Cooper. 1964. Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy, 2nd ed. London: Tavistock.
  • Laing, R.D., H. Phillipson, and A.R. Lee. 1966. Interpersonal Perception: A Theory and a Method of Research. London: Tavistock.
  • Laing, R.D. 1967. The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  • Laing, R.D. 1969. Self and Others, 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books.
  • Laing, R.D. 1970. Knots. London: Penguin.
  • Laing, R.D. 1971. The Politics of the Family and Other Essays. London: Tavistock.
  • Laing, R.D. 1976. Do You Love Me? An Entertainment in Conversation and Verse. New York: Pantheon Books.
  • Laing, R.D. 1976. Sonnets. London: Michael Joseph.
  • Laing, R.D. 1976. The Facts of Life. London: Penguin.
  • Laing, R.D. 1977. Conversations with Adam and Natasha. New York: Pantheon.
  • Laing, R.D. 1982. The Voice of Experience: Experience, Science and Psychiatry. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  • Laing, R.D. 1985. Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927–1957. London: Macmillan.
  • Mullan, B. 1995. Mad to be Normal: Conversations with R.D. Laing. London: Free Association Books.

Books on R.D. Laing

  • Barnes, M., and J. Berke. 1971. Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness. London: MacGibbon and Kee. (Personal report from a Kingsley Hall patient and her therapist)
  • Boyers, R., and R. Orrill, eds. 1971. Laing and Anti-Psychiatry. New York: Salamagundi Press.
  • Burston, D. 1996. The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R. D. Laing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Burston, D. 2000. The Crucible of Experience: R.D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Clay, J. 1996. R.D. Laing: A Divided Self. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
  • Collier, A. 1977. R.D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy. New York: Pantheon.
  • Evans, R.I. 1976. R.D. Laing, The Man and His Ideas. New York: E.P. Dutton.
  • Friedenberg, E.Z. 1973. R.D. Laing. New York: Viking Press.
  • Kotowicz, Z. 1977. R.D. Laing and the Paths of Anti-Psychiatry. London: Taylor & Francis.
  • Miller, G. 2004. R.D. Laing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Laing, A. 1994. R.D. Laing: A Biography. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.
  • Mullan, B. 1999. R.D. Laing: A Personal View. London: Duckworth.
  • Mullan, B., ed. 1997. R.D. Laing: Creative Destroyer. London: Cassell & Co.
  • Raschid, S., ed. 2005. R.D. Laing: Contemporary Perspectives. London: Free Association Books.
  • Russell, R., and R.D. Laing. 1992. R.D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love. New York: Hillgarth Press.

Films on R.D. Laing

  • Asylum (1972). A documentary directed by Peter Robinson showing Laing's psychiatric community project where patients and therapists lived together. Laing also appears in the film.
  • Did You Used to be R.D. Laing? (1988). A documentary by Tom Shandel and Kirk Tougas mainly consisting of a series of lectures and interviews conducted at Simon Fraser University in Canada.


Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.