NP RD Laing

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Mackin [mailto:paul.mackin at verizon.net]
> On May 16, 2006, at 9:22 AM, Ghetta Life wrote:
> 
> These are two names out of the past. Don't hear much of them anymore  
> but in the sixties they were very fashionable, especially Laing.  His  
> view might have been roughly summarized as seeing psychosis as just  
> an alternative view of things. He never actually said that the  
> mentally ill were the truly sane ones,  I don't think. Put a lot of   
> stress of the (bad) effect of the family on the patient. Family  
> dynamics problem.
> 
> Ran across Laing's name in currently reading Alan Bennett's "Untold  
> Stories." Bennett was  describing his mother's hospitalizations for  
> depression back in the sixties.  (Bennett of "Fringe" and "The  
> History Boys")

>From what little I've read, Laing ran a sort of 1/2 way house that didn't depend on keeping people sedated, but on skilled moment-to-moment interaction.  

I think the neighbors weren't really happy with it, he had to deal with a subsidized medical bureaucracy in England, and there are legitimate questions about how a benevolent/caring authority structure is more labor-intensive (and perhaps harder for clients to adapt to) than a traditional forceful/commanding  authority structure, but the budget was small, the fees relatively low, and he had some success. 

I can't quote the numbers from memory, so they probably weren't super great - I admire his approach, so I'd remember supporting evidence.  

Laing's book "Knots" is kind of a mind-bender.

Looked up Alan Bennett in Wikipedia.  An astonishingly prolific worker. I just realized, I used to watch a lot more English comedy shows than I do lately.  Are there any good new ones?  Besides Parliament, I mean... (-;


> 
> >
> > http://laingsociety.org/colloquia/psychotherapy/kjs1999sym.htm
> > Laing's Existential-Humanistic Practice: What Was He Actually Doing? 1
> >

thanks, will check that out.