Laing, R.D. (1960) The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ron Roberts, ‘Madness, Myth and Medicine—The Continuing Relevance of Thomas Szasz, Now in his 91st Year’, The Psychologist, 2 nd August 2010

Laing saw psychopathology as being seated not in biological or psychic organs — whereby environment is relegated to playing at most only an accidental role as immediate trigger of disease (the "stress diathesis model" of the nature and causes of psychopathology) — but rather in the social cradle, the urban home, which cultivates it, the very crucible in which selves are forged. This re-evaluation of the locus of the disease process — and consequent shift in forms of treatment — was in stark contrast to psychiatric orthodoxy (in the broadest sense we have of ourselves as psychological subjects and pathological selves). Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behaviour and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an enigmatic language of personal symbolism which is meaningful only from within their situation. In October 1972, Laing met Arthur Janov, author of the popular book The Primal Scream. Though Laing found Janov modest and unassuming, he thought of him as a "jig man" (someone who knows a lot about a little). Laing sympathized with Janov, but regarded his primal therapy as a lucrative business, one which required no more than obtaining a suitable space and letting people "hang it all out". [17]

Become a Member

urn:oclc:804144200 Republisher_date 20130116055901 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20130115041925 Scanner scribe9.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition)

Some people undoubtedly have a remarkable aptitude for keeping the other tied in knots. There are those who excel in tying knots and those who excel in being tied in knots. Tyer and tied are often both unconscious of how it is done, or even that it is being done at all. It is strikingly how difficult it is for the parties concerned to see what is happening. We must remember that part of the knot is not to see that it is a knot. [18] Mental illness is the game-playing tactic adopted … by those who are dissatisfied with the rules of the game in which they are a player. [2] But Adam was not all right and, despite his outgoing demeanour, had not been for some time. 'I think Adam caught the depressive mood from his father,' says the psychotherapist Theodor Itten, a former student of RD Laing who later became a close family friend. Dr Itten says the break-up of his parents' marriage - Adam's mother, Jutta, separated from Laing in 1981 - affected him badly. 'When he was 13, 14, 15, he was rebellious, he dropped out of school. I think that was a very sad period of time for Adam. He tried to soothe it with smoking, sometimes with drugs and with drinking as a sort of self-medication. According to my principles I should rate this a 4*, as I reserve 5* as a strong recommendation for all readers, and without very close attention this will seem like nonsense to many readers (as is the case for all poetry). But I'm very much on Laing's wavelength. I give it 5* as I think this poem summarizes the logic of relationship failures, in a way that provides a fundamental, deep and timeless understanding of emotions. It's essentially condensing archetypal patterns in relationship disputes, and so it saves a lot of mental processing time normally demanded to recognize and increase our chances of intentionally avoiding these written, spoken and thought patterns in our own experiences, should we wish to avoid or diffuse interpersonal (or even intrapersonal) conflict. Laing was troubled by his own personal problems, suffering from both episodic alcoholism and clinical depression, according to his self-diagnosis in a BBC Radio interview with Anthony Clare in 1983, [21] although he reportedly was free of both in the years before his death. These admissions were to have serious consequences for Laing as they formed part of the case against him by the General Medical Council which led to him ceasing to practise medicine. [22]As for time. I wasted so much time in the past that I’ve very conscious of making the most of what time I have left. By ‘wasted’ I mean working ridiculously-long hours and letting doing my duty (or what I saw to be my duty) rule my life and now I’ve had enough. I have an enormous amount of catching up to do. If I’d applied myself to literary studies then I’d be a professor by now at least instead of the pretender that I am. Not everyone can afford to do what I’ve doing – I have bills like everyone else – but the simple fact is that you can live on a lot less than people would have you believe as long as you cut your cloth and prioritise. I have the time to research articles like this because I make the time and yet I still feel that every one is rushed. I feel like this article is basically just the outline for a proper essay but when am I going to find the time to write that? I have far too many other things to find out about. by minds less flexible and more accepting than his own. From his early days as an army psychiatrist, Laing realised that the whole object of psychiatric hospitals wasn’t to cure patients but to keep Kingsley Hall". Philadelphia Association. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008 . Retrieved 13 September 2008. Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL9300838M Openlibrary_edition It is time to look freshly at a brilliant pioneer whose work has been widely, perhaps deliberately, misunderstood'