or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
8 used & new from £3.97

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise: AND the Bird of Paradise
 
 

The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise: AND the Bird of Paradise (Paperback)

by R. D. Laing (Author) "EVEN facts become fictions without adequate ways of seeing 'the facts' ..." (more)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.47 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £4.52 (41%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Wednesday, November 11? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
6 new from £5.30 2 used from £3.97

Frequently Bought Together

The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise: AND the Bird of Paradise + The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Penguin Psychology) + Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature
Price For All Three: £20.87

Show availability and shipping details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Penguin Psychology)

The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Penguin Psychology)

by R. Laing
4.6 out of 5 stars (8)  £5.98
Knots

Knots

by Laing rd
4.4 out of 5 stars (7)  £6.71
Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics (Pelican)

Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics (Pelican)

by R.D. Laing
Self and Others (Selected Works of R.D.Laing)

Self and Others (Selected Works of R.D.Laing)

by R D Laing
£109.25
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Contact (Perennial library)

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Contact (Perennial library)

by Thomas Szasz
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (26 April 1990)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140134867
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140134865
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 21,535 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   Birds Of Paradise opens new browser window
Ask.com  -  Search for Birds Of Paradise Find Birds of paradise 
  
 

Product Description

Product Description

In ‘The Politics of Experience’ and the visionary ‘Bird of Paradise’, R.D. Laing shows how the straitjacket of conformity imposed on us all leads to intense feelings of alienation and a tragic waste of human potential. He throws into question the notion of normality, examines schizophrenia and psychotherapy, transcendence and ‘us and them’ thinking, and illustrates his ideas with a remarkable case history of a ten-day psychosis. ‘We are bemused and crazed creatures,’ Laing suggests. This outline of ‘a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man’ represents a major attempt to understand our deepest dilemmas and sketch in solutions. ‘Everyone in contemporary psychiatry owes something to R.D. Laing’ Anthony Clare, the Guardian.


About the Author

R.D. Laing, one of the best-known psychiatrists of modern times, was born in Glasgow in 1927 and graduated from Glasgow University as a doctor of medicine. In the 1960's he developed the argument that there may be a benefit in allowing acute mental and emotional turmoil in depth to go on and have its way, and that the outcome of such turmoil could have a positive value. He was the first to put such a stand to the test by establishing, with others, residences where persons could live and be free to let happen what will when the acute psychosis is given free rein, or where, at the very least, they receive no treatment they do not want. This work with the Philadelphia Association since 1964, together with his focus on disturbed and disturbing types of interaction in institutions, groups and families, has been both influential and continually controversial. R.D. Laing's writings range from books on social theory to verse, as well as numerous articles and reviews in scientific journals and the popular press. His publications are: The Divided Self, Self and Others, Interpersonal Perception (with H. Phillipson and A. Robin Lee), Reason and Violence (introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre), Sanity, Madness and the Family (with A. Esterson), The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, Knots, The Politics of the Family, The Facts of Life, Do You Love Me?, Conversations with Children, Sonnets, The Voice of Experience and Wisdom, Madness and Folly. R.D. Laing died in 1989. Anthony Clare, writing in the Guardian, said of him: "His major achievement was that he dragged the isolated and neglected inner world of the severely psychotic individual out of the back ward of the large gloomy mental hospital and on to the front pages of influential newspapers, journals and literary magazines... Everyone in contemporary psychiatry owes something to R.D. Laing."

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
EVEN facts become fictions without adequate ways of seeing 'the facts'. Read the first page
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise: AND the Bird of Paradise
60% buy the item featured on this page:
The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise: AND the Bird of Paradise 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£6.47
The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Penguin Psychology)
23% buy
The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (Penguin Psychology) 4.6 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.98
Politics of Experience #
7% buy
Politics of Experience #
£6.93
Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics (Pelican)
5% buy
Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics (Pelican) 3.7 out of 5 stars (3)

 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Coming of age, 25 Oct 2007
By calmly - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
No book on first reading has ever hit me with the force of this one.

Some of the content I don't buy: the focus on madness as a positive journey and the de-emphasis on inborn factors that may lead to "schizophrenia".

But as an example of compelling writing, of a writer putting his heart into his work, I don't know of any rival to this book.

But there's a lot more than writing style here. This is one of the strongest challenges to us "normal" folk about the potential we may have tossed away in exchange for a fit in our troubled society.

This isn't a book that tells us what to do or that sells some old tradition. This is a book that tells us how it seems ... to someone uniquely qualified and extraordinarily concerned about our well-being.

Laing was a great gift to the world and this is his greatest book.
Comment Comments (3) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Psychiatric call to arms still relevant today, 18 April 2009
As a psychiatric-call-arms this book is abit of a dog's dinner. Apart from the very last chapter everything here is taken from direct transcripts of Laing's lectures throughout the early 60s. The style & approach changes quite rapidly then: The first 3 chapters are abit Irving Goffman with possibly a hint of heidegger thrown in, and its probably only until chapter 4 that Laing starts to write in his own voice and becomes profound by way of personal experience; as opposed to whatever he was reading the week before.

And do you know, for all the accusations of self-indulgent anti-conformism, Laing is just about the most lucid, compassionate, rational and pragmatic philosopher of psychiatry imaginable. Once he gets going.

His main thesis also benefits from being devastatingly simple: If you want to know the best way to treat someone who's 'gone mad' ask someone who's 'been mad'. If you want to get better, allow yourself to go through the process of being unwell. If, as a culture, you want to be able to deal with your own mental spaces, give it a context with which it can be explored.

Of course even in 2009 this is still largely unrealised stuff. Psychotherapy has perhaps become somewhat more 'client-orientated', non-judgemental. We dont accept the dogmatic extremism of behaviourism quite like we used to, and can now acknowledge our private spaces, to some limited extent, once more.

Although this is all pretty meagre 'progress' from where we started out. We still treat mentally ill patients much the same as well did before, still erroneously refer to them as being 'ill', and in mainstream academia physicalism looks set to bring the spectre of behaviourism back to life all over again.

It's all abit depressing, and other than Szasz you do wonder where the much needed voices of descent have gone. Perhaps it's because as Laing suggests: the interior life is just something we're fundmanetally uncomfortable with as a culture. How often for instance do you talk about your dreams with your friends? Even amongst close relatives refering to your internal dramas in a public setting can still be regarded as 'socially deviant'.

There's something about 'experience' that continues to bug us. Is it too unquantifiable to satisfy our occidental addiction for charts and statistics? Possibly. Although i expect you could point to any number of social/political causes for our failure to engage with ourselves. In mean time however, you cant do much worse than picking up this book and having a wee think for yourself.

The proto-Irvine Welsh ramble at the end is pretty good as well.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Accident and Emergency Experiences, 14 Jan 2001
If you ever wanted to know what it is like to work in an A&E department read this neo Joycean account
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 

   


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject






i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.