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his views, influenced by existential philosophy, on the causes and treatment of mental illness, which went against the psychiatric orthodoxy of the time. He is often associatied with the anti-psychiatry movement although, like many of his contemporaries also critical of psychiatry, he himself rejected this label.
Laing was born in the Govanhill district of Glasgow, Scotland and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University. He spent several years as an army psychiatrist, where he found he had a particular talent for communicating with mentally distressed people. In 1953 Laing left the army and later went to study at the Tavistock ClinicThe Tavistock Institute is an outgrowth of the Tavistock Clinic which was founded in 1920 in Tavistock Square in London. The Institute, founded in 1946, was originally called the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations''. These institutions were entirely p in LondonLondon is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England, and with over seven million inhabitants in the Greater London area, is the second-most populous conurbation in Europe (after Moscow). From being Londinium the capital of the Roman province of Bri, widely known as a centre for the study and practice of psychotherapyPsychotherapy is a set of techniques believed to cure or to help solve behavioral and other psychological problems in humans. The common part of these techniques is direct personal contact between therapist and patient, mainly in the form of talking. (particularly psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. The fundamental subject matter of psychoanalysis is the unconscious patterns of life revealed through the analysand's (the patient's) free assoc).
Laing was troubled by his own demons, suffering both from alcoholismAlcoholism is an addictive dependency on alcohol characterised by craving (a strong need to drink); loss of control (being unable to stop); physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms; and tolerance (increasing difficulty of becoming drunk). 1820 Alcoholi and clinical depressionIt is common to feel sad, discouraged, or "down" once in a while, and anyone in this state might say they are suffering from depression. But for some people, this mood persists. For depression, or any other condition, to be termed "clinical" it must reach though periods of his life, although he reportedly recovered from both in the years before his death. He died of a heart attackplaque builds up in the walls of blood vessels. Acute myocardial infarction AMI or MI , commonly known as heart attack is a serious, sudden heart condition characterized by varying degrees of chest pain, weakness, sweating, nausea, and vomiting, sometimes whilst playing tennis at the age of 62.
Laing argued that the strange behaviour 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. 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 JaspersKarl Theodor Jaspers ( February 23, 1883 February 26, 1969), a German psychiatrist and philosopher, had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. Biography Jaspers was born in Oldenburg in 1883 to a mother from a local farming comm 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 behaviour 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.
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 traveller could return from the journey with important insights, and may even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result.
Laing is often regarded as an important figure in the anti-psychiatry movement, along with David Cooper, Thomas Szasz and Michael Foucault. However, like many of his contempories, labelling him as 'anti-psychiatry' is a caricature of his stated views. Laing never denied the value of treating mental distress, but simply wanted to challege 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.
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