- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (24 Jun 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0715628895
- ISBN-13: 978-0715628898
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,084,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
R.D. Laing's reputation has suffered serious setbacks since its 1960s' heyday when his (still) important book The Divided Self, his friendships with fellow iconoclasts (David Cooper, Timothy Leary et al) and his anti-Establishment candour made him a household name. Then Laing's critique of the family, madness and the psychiatric establishment seemed more than simply germane--it was revolutionary. Today his thought seems less sophisticated than other intellectuals who have interrogated madness (Michel Foucault, for example) and his existentialism seems dated. Worse than this his interest in re-birthing and his questionable poetry make him somewhat of an embarrassment: Laing is seen as merely a product of his time, his genuine innovations and critiques forgotten. Bob Mullan was a friend and disciple of Laing who, with this and Mad to Be Normal, his volume of interview transcripts with Laing, wants to put the record straight about a thinker whose extremity is alluded to more often than his erudition. Mullan, himself the writer of a number of volumes on therapy, talks of his own life's journey and how Laing's thought reinforced his views about the mistreatment of those who society labels mad. He brings our attention back to the brave humanity that produced Laing's thought and to the continuing relevance of the need to truly listen to those society finds it much easier to drug, deride, incarcerate or ignore. --Mark Thwaite
Product Description
This biography pieces together elements of Laing's life, re-evaluating this remarkable man's thought. In particular it addresses his ambivalence towards Freud; his unreconstructed Marxism; his love of Buddha - but his reconstructed Buddhism; his adoration of Nietzsche and Sartre - the only two 'contemporaries' he believed superior to himself; and the ideas he developed through his own experience of working with himself and his patients. His behaviour could range from peacefulness and enlightenment to violence. But he could always be trusted to be none but himself - tender, compassionate, cruel, vindictive, sober or drunk, muddle-headed and/or profoundly perceptive and original, tearful and morose, joyous and contented.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
There's something about R.D. Laing that polarises those who're interested in the treatment of mental illness in Western society.
With statements such as, "a child born today in the United Kingdom stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university ... This can be taken as an indication that we are driving our children mad more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. Perhaps it is our way of educating them that is driving them mad", you can see why.
This is a fascinating book written by someone who knew his subject as well as anyone. For those interested in trying to get an alternative insight into psychiatric illnesses including psychosis, Mullan's book will show where Laing was coming from.
With statements such as, "a child born today in the United Kingdom stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university ... This can be taken as an indication that we are driving our children mad more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. Perhaps it is our way of educating them that is driving them mad", you can see why.
This is a fascinating book written by someone who knew his subject as well as anyone. For those interested in trying to get an alternative insight into psychiatric illnesses including psychosis, Mullan's book will show where Laing was coming from.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
A different biography - R.D. Laing: A Personal View
8 Sep 2010
Amazon Verified Purchase
An excellent view and a personal review of the life of R.D. Laing and of the author. The author gives you not only his personal view of R.D. Laing - with whom he had lots of close contact with - but also a context of the time and the criticisms of Laing during it. He's a devotee but not without insight in the the MAN R.D. Laing as a person, a human individual searching for meaning. If you can handle the wiggles, squizzles and oddities of the times in which R.D. Laing lived and wrote then you'll enjoy this insightful and thoughtful biography of a truly insightful man, a commentator on our crazy and human world and what he and we all need.
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