R.D. Laing: A Biography - Hardcover

Laing, Adrian Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0720609348 ISBN 13: 9780720609349

Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd, 1995

Synopsis

R. D. Laing was one of the most controversial and innovative psychiatrists of modern times. In this, the first full-scale biography, Laing's son tells the story of his father's career, beginning with his unhappy relationship with an emotionally distant and unexpressive mother, which laid the foundation for a lifetime of pioneering work on madness and the family.
Laing formulated his unorthodox views on psychiatry while still at medical school in Glasgow, and there he began his intense interaction with disturbed patients. In the mid-sixties, he co-founded the therapeutic residential community, Kingsley Hall, where he became famous for his experiments with LSD and his treatment of Mary Barnes.
In the 1970s Laing studied Zen Buddhism, published poetry, recorded an LP and ran rebirthing workshops in Europe, Britain and the United States. These diverse activities did little to endear him to conventional psychiatrists, but made him into a guru of radical chic.
Yet despite his acknowledged empathy with the disturbed, Laing failed to address his own family problems. On the professional side, his practices ultimately led to a voluntary dissociation from the medical establishment itself.

About this title

Reviews

British psychiatrist, guru, LSD therapist and critic of mainstream psychotherapy with his theory of madness?one that questioned the sanity of society itself?Ronald Laing (1927-1989) neglected and abused his own family, according to this painfully candid, demythologizing biography written by the second of his six sons. Ronald Laing's relationship with his undemonstrative mother left him feeling emotionally deprived and bewildered throughout his life. In the mid-1960s, he transformed a London settlement house into a center for schizophrenics, who were given hallucinogenic drugs under supervision; yet it became a refuge mainly for dropouts attracted to Laing's radical-chic charisma. His wife, Anne, humiliated by the open secret of his having a girlfriend, left him in 1966, taking the children, including Adrian, then nine years old. Laing's last two decades were a "constant blur" of touring, drinking binges and disruptive behavior, reports the author, a lawyer in London, who writes seemingly without bitterness in a sad, revelatory portrait.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0720609348
• ISBN 13: 9780720609349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248