Dear Tipsters,
Michael P. wrote:
"Perhaps Daniel is wrong on this point but it is clear that Laing suffered from
alcoholism and depression through significant parts of his life. In Alan
Beveridge's obituary for Laing, he make the following
statements:
(See: http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/22/7/452.full.pdf )"
There is no doubt that Laing drank to excess and may have suffered from
alcoholism and depression, but that is a far cry from being hospitalized for
shizophrenia.
You can read an account of his experiences observing and mixing with and
listening to patients in his autobiographical book Wisdom, Madness and Folly
(1985). One of his interests was to explore how far help could be given by
establishing a true interpersonal relationship. He claims that eyebrows were
raised when he moved the chair in his office from behind the desk so that he
sat beside his patient. He also claims that "you could have heard a pin drop"
(p. 189) when he admitted in a staff seminar that he allowed his schizophrenic
patients to talk to him.
Here is a quotation that shows the kind of questions that Laing asked about the
nature of schizophrenia:
"Perhaps we will learn to accord to so-called schizophrenics who have come back
to us, perhaps after years, no less respect than the often no less lost
explorers of the Renaissance. ....future men ...will see that what we call
'schizophrenia' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary
people, the light began to break through the cracks in our all-too-closed
minds."
Politics of Experience, 1967, p. 107.
By the way, Laing has never liked the label "anti-psychiatrist" that has
sometimes been slapped on him (WM&F, p. 11). Essentially what he tried to do
was "bracket" assumptions about biological determinism and explore the problem
from the point of view of human relationships.
Sincerely,
Stuart
___________________________________________________________________________
"Floreat Labore"
"Recti cultus pectora roborant"
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: 819 822 9600 x 2402
Department of Psychology, Fax: 819 822 9661
Bishop's University,
2600 rue College,
Sherbrooke,
Québec J1M 1Z7,
Canada.
E-mail: [email protected] (or [email protected])
Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Floreat Labore"
___________________________________________________________________________
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