The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise
$28.43
- Paperback
160 pages
- Release Date
26 April 1990
Summary
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.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780140134865 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0140134867 |
| Author: | R.D. Laing |
| Publisher: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Imprint: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 160 |
| Release Date: | 26 April 1990 |
| Weight: | 140g |
| Dimensions: | 10mm x 130mm x 197mm |
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R.D. Laing
R.D. Laing, born in Glasgow in 1927, was a prominent psychiatrist who graduated from Glasgow University as a doctor of medicine.
In the 1960s, Laing proposed that acute mental and emotional turmoil could hold positive value if allowed to run its course. He tested this theory by co-founding residences through the Philadelphia Association, where individuals experiencing acute psychosis could live without unwanted treatment, allowing their turmoil to unfold freely. This work, which began in 1964, and his examination of disturbed interactions within institutions, groups, and families, proved both influential and consistently controversial.
Laing’s extensive writings encompass social theory, verse, scientific journal articles, and popular press pieces. His notable publications include:
- 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
- Wisdom, Madness and Folly
R.D. Laing passed away in 1989. As Anthony Clare wrote in The Guardian, Laing’s significant contribution was bringing the “isolated and neglected inner world of the severely psychotic individual” from the confines of mental hospitals to public attention through influential media, stating, “Everyone in contemporary psychiatry owes something to R.D. Laing.”
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