R.D. Laing.

[Art Vandelay]

Has anyone here ever read any of his work? Apart from reading his wikipedia page, I know nothing about him or his theories; as someone going through mental illness, I must say that are intriguing and some of what I read strikes me as similar to what I've always felt to be true deep down, particularly: "Insanity is a sane response to an insane world."

Anyone able to perhaps shed some light, or give a brief overview of his thoughts?

[blake 3:17]

I've read waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. I own two copies of Knots, two of The Politics of Experience, one of Politics of the Family.

His thought changed over time, and he got a bit kooky at times, but the biggest idea in his work was that mental illness was produced by putting people in situations of "double binds" -- whatever you do is somehow harmful to people who claim to love you and you don't love them back in the right way. Some of the work he with Cooper --Sanity, Madness and the Family, I think -- dealt very closely with some of these issues, where a member of a family essentially becomes the scapegoat for everyone else's problems.

Both he and Cooper got very involved in Sartre's work -- the double bind is the opposite of good faith -- but their book on Sartre I've found incomprehensible.

Laing later engaged in a whole series of anti-psychiatry communities, some of which sound very screwed up. I think he romanticized psychosis in not very helpful ways.

Some of the analysis of the family I think has been shown to be false in SOME ways. There's the whole misguided notion than autism was caused by mothers who weren't loving enough. Some of it is pretty right on, and deals with talking about stuff that nobody can talk about, and how people get screwed up by living lies.

[Art Vandelay]

I've read waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. I own two copies of Knots, two of The Politics of Experience, one of Politics of the Family.

His thought changed over time, and he got a bit kooky at times, but the biggest idea in his work was that mental illness was produced by putting people in situations of "double binds" -- whatever you do is somehow harmful to people who claim to love you and you don't love them back in the right way. Some of the work he with Cooper --Sanity, Madness and the Family, I think -- dealt very closely with some of these issues, where a member of a family essentially becomes the scapegoat for everyone else's problems.

Both he and Cooper got very involved in Sartre's work -- the double bind is the opposite of good faith -- but their book on Sartre I've found incomprehensible.

Laing later engaged in a whole series of anti-psychiatry communities, some of which sound very screwed up. I think he romanticized psychosis in not very helpful ways.

Some of the analysis of the family I think has been shown to be false in SOME ways. There's the whole misguided notion than autism was caused by mothers who weren't loving enough. Some of it is pretty right on, and deals with talking about stuff that nobody can talk about, and how people get screwed up by living lies.

Is there anything you would suggest for someone trying to overcome mental illness, without going through the traditional psychiatric channels? Or is his work not exactly what I'm looking for.

[blake 3:17]

Is there anything you would suggest for someone trying to overcome mental illness, without going through the traditional psychiatric channels? Or is his work not exactly what I'm looking for.

I don't think his work has too much to offer in a practical way for helping deal with mental illness. It certainly informed a lot of critiques of psychiatry to build other models.

And it might very well help someone think about their of mental illness in a potentially healthier way. I think he was very brilliant thinker, and a fine writer, but I'm not so sure he has too too much very practical to say.

The guy I like on contemporary psychopharmacology is David Healy. He's very critical of Big Pharma, but also quite critical of anti-psychiatrists, like Laing. He refers to Laing, etc, as 'pharmaceutical Calvinists', which is not a bad way of putting it.

I know people who have benefited enormously from conventional psychiatry, and others that really haven't at all. My own attitude is if it works great, and if not try to find something that does work. I knew one person through politics, who was fine most of the time, but would enter into just terrible suicidal depressions. They quit politics, started jogging like a maniac, and found a very calm job, and seem to be really well.

Alternative therapies can also be very useful, but are often extremely expensive, which creates its own problems. Sometimes public health workers know about services which are either free or affordable and they can sometimes be useful too.

"It depends" is a bit of a squishy answer, but the only honest one I can give.

[Red Economist]

Is there anything you would suggest for someone trying to overcome mental illness, without going through the traditional psychiatric channels? Or is his work not exactly what I'm looking for.

I've had depression or a mild form of masochism for about four years. for clarification, masochism is a pattern of behavior that resembles 'aquired helplessness' and hence goes by the name of 'self-defeating personality disorder'. The first two years were hell, but it has got progressively easier as it goes along.

The best piece of advice I can give you is just to try to find a 'personal space' where you can just swear, shout, and feel comfortable thinking your own thoughts (and reading controversial books which help the process along). I've found it has the same effect as the talking cure in unrepressing stuff but without the psychoanalyist and helps me decide what to do next. For me this is when my parents are out and I have the house to myself, but there is also a shed/summerhouse in the garden which has been helpful. the garden is sufficently big that they can't hear me swearing.

overall, It hasn't been easy as I've been looking for a 'point of reference' to say 'this is where I should be going' and then wondering if that is where I want to go or if that is where I'm expected to go, or actually want it because I'm frightened of doing something else. It's like sailing stormy seas without knowing the destination.

I found Erich Fromm very helpful (Fear of Freedom has been in constant use, if not being read, then thinking about it), and Wilhelm Reich has been useful at times (Reich kept the theory of masochism as caused by environmental problems rather than as caused by a life-death instinct by Freud in the Wake of WWI). I have come accorss Lang on wikipedia, but haven't read his work at all. although I think he's right (in my case) about the mental illness being caused by putting people in double-blinds or catch 22 situations.

I found the choice of Reich and Fromm was accidental, in so far as they were the first people I came accross that dealt with things I was going through. I picked up the copy of fear of freedom in a bookshop and started reading, then found myself thinking... hmmm, this sounds familiar. If your familiar with Lang and most importantly trust his advice/judgement, he's as good a starting point as any and you've just got to see where your unconscious takes you.

One of the things that came up was that you shouldn't use perscription drugs unless absolutley necessary;
Fromm said something along the lines of "drugs hide the symptoms, but symptoms are the freind of the psychoanalyist because they show that the patient is fighting for their sanity". he warned against the person who functions totally normally as being more ill than the neurotic if the society is infact ill. (e.g. the person who functions perfectly in nazi-germany, soviet union etc as the extreme example).

In most cases, using Drugs is more about the stigma of mentall illness than the illness itself; It is about getting rid of the 'inconvience' of people who have emotional problems (probably because it reminds other peoples of their own personal problems which they're hiding, trying to repress and therefore project on to others). Drugs are about getting people to behave in expected and predictable ways, which may actually be the problem.

Fromm made the distinction that conventional psycharity defines sanity in terms of socio-economic functioning (and hence insanty/neurois is not functioning within society) where as his more radical psycharity defined it in terms of the person realising their freedom through personal growth and self-knowledge. the latter can (and in my case does) lead to conflicts if you grow in a direction that is not socially 'desireable' or 'acceptable'. however, ultimatley the reason for growth is not abstract but that it feels great and you get a huge buzz off learning something new and achieveing something!

I'm not sure this is entirely helpful, (and may be a bit rambling) but I hope it illustrates what going it alone is like. If I had to, I would probably do it the same way again as I've found the fear of knowing oneself is ultimately worse than the truth which I've been hiding from. but at the same time knowing someone is there is always very helpful.

[Art Vandelay]

Thank you both for your lengthy responses, I really appreciate them. :) I'm going to check out the authors that both of you recommended and hope more people respond as well, I'd love to get as many pov's on this as possible. It is indeed a frightening and daunting task, attempting to deal with this on one's self.

[blake 3:17]

There was an idea of Laing's -- ontological insecurity -- which is fairly equivalent to a term I came across in Marc Lewis' Memoir of an Addicted Brain -- ego depletion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

Being a bit prone to solipsism, weird thoughts, umpteen vices, and getting stressed out pretty easily, I found the idea of Ego Depletion much more useful than Ontological Insecurity.

[TiberiusGracchus]

Anyone able to perhaps shed some light, or give a brief overview of his thoughts?

Despite not having read it myself I would recommend this book:
R. D. Laing: the philosophy and politics of psychotherapy ([url]http://www.amazon.com/R-D-Laing-The-Philosophy/dp/0394733533), by Andrew Collier.

I've read two other books by Collier, an introduction to Critical Realism (http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Realism-Introduction-Bhaskars-Philosophy/dp/0860916022/), and an introduction to Marx (http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Beginners-Guide-Oneworld/dp/1851685340). Both were extremly lucid, thoughtful and well-balanced. So I guess his introduction to Laing is great as well.

[Revenant]

Laing was highly critical of the modern family unit, modern family dynamics and human social relations in general it seems to me, that's why I like him.

His work on Schizophrenia and analysis always seemed to be largely centred around the parent's or families of the sufferer, like Marx and the Material conditions.

Psychological tricks, "secret games", humiliations, irrationality and so on are deployed so frequently in these atmospheres, "incubators of madness" that they affect a subject's behaviour and can exert such a negative influence on them, that Laing referred to love as a lie, and likened the average family to "stepping into a carbon monoxide gas chambers".