Ronald David Laing

R.D.Laing in 1983

Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927, Glasgow Scotland – 23 August 1989), was a Scottish psychiatrist who described mental illness, especially psychosis.

Laing is known for his theories on the causes of the mental perturbations. His theory on the "schizogenous" (?) parents or schizophrenia was to exclude him from the psychiatric orthodoxy of his times. He often was connected in thought with the movement against psychiatry called antipsychiatry, although he rejected that epithet.

Writings (selection)

• 1960 - Laing, R.D.: The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
• 1964 - Laing, R.D. and Esterson, A.: Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Penguin Books.
• 1964 - Laing, R.D. and Cooper, D.G.: Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy. (2nd ed.) London: Tavistock Publications Ltd.
• 1966 - Laing, R.D., Phillipson, H. and Lee, A.R.: Interpersonal Perception: A Theory and a Method of Research. London: Tavistock.
• 1967 - Laing, R.D.: The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
• 1969 - Laing, R.D.: Self and Others. (2nd ed.) London: Penguin Books.
• 1970 - Laing, R.D.: Knots. London: Penguin.
• 1971 - Laing, R.D.: The Politics of the Family and Other Essays. London: Tavistock Publications.
• 1976 - Laing, R.D.: Do You Love Me? An Entertainment in Conversation and Verse New York: Pantheon Books.
• 1976 - Laing, R.D.: Sonnets. London: Michael Joseph.
• 1976 - Laing, R.D.: The Facts of Life. London: Penguin.
• 1977 - Laing, R.D.: Conversations with Adam and Natasha. New York: Pantheon.
• 1982 - Laing, R.D.: The Voice of Experience: Experience, Science and Psychiatry. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
• 1985 - Laing, R.D.: Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-1957. London: Macmillan.
• 1995 - Mullan, B.: Mad to be Normal: Conversations with R.D. Laing. London: Free Association Books.

Other websites

• The International R.D. Laing Institute (Switzerland)
• The Society for Laingian Studies Archived 2013-03-14 at the Wayback Machine