The name R. D. Laing continues to be widely recognized by those in the psychotherapy community in the United States and Europe. Laing’s books are a testament to his breadth of interests, including the understanding of madness, alternatives to conventional psychiatric treatment, existential philosophy and therapy, family systems, cybernetics, mysticism, and poetry. He is most remembered for his devastating critique of psychiatric practices, his controversial rejection of the concept of ‘mental illness,’ and his groundbreaking center for people in acute mental distress at Kingsley Hall, London. Most of the books that have been published about Laing have been written by people who did not know him personally and were unfamiliar with Laing the man and teacher. The Legacy of R. D. Laing: An appraisal of his contemporary relevance is composed by thinkers and practitioners who knew Laing intimately, some of whom worked with Laing. This collection of papers brings a perspective and balance to Laing’s controversial ideas, some of which were never addressed in his books. There has never been a collection of papers that address so thoroughly the question of who Laing was and why he became the most famous psychiatrist in the world. As M. Guy Thompson’s collection illustrates, there are now a number of alternatives to psychiatry throughout the world, and much of this can be credited to Laing’s influence. The Legacy of R. D. Laing will ensure the reader has a keen grasp of who Laing was, what it was like to be his patient or his friend, and why his thinking was far ahead of its time, even in the radical era of the 1970s. It is timely to appraise the nature of his contribution and bring Laing back into contemporary conversations about the nature of sanity and madness, and more humane approaches to helping those in profound mental distress. This book offers an in-depth insight into the work of R.D. Laing. It will be a must read for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, family therapists, psychiatrists and academics alike. M. Guy Thompson, PhD is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and Chairman of Free Association, Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to the dissemination of Laing’s ideas, in San Francisco. Dr. Thompson received his psychoanalytic training from R. D. Laing and associates at the Philadelphia Association and is the author of numerous books and journal articles on psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and schizophrenia. He currently lives in San Rafael, California.

Franco Basaglia (1924-1980) was an Italian psychiatrist and activist who proposed the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals and pioneered new ideas about mental health and its treatment. Basaglia was also one of the principal proponents of Italy's Law 180, which effectively closed down large mental hospitals in Italy. His ideas and his disciples have had a decisive influence in the move away from institutional care in many parts of the world, particularly in continental Europe and South America. However, Basaglia is strikingly absent from the literature in Germanic and Anglophone psychiatry. Most of the literature about Basaglia in the last 40 years has been published by his followers and supporters and has often been largely positive, with little exploration of differing responses or possible limitations of his model. Basaglia's International Legacy: From Asylum to Community provides an overview of current thinking and the international influence of Franco Basaglia. This resource draws on the combined knowledge of clinicians, policy makers, historians, and social scientists, including a handful of Basaglia's collaborators. It provides an in-depth understanding and critical analysis of the various applications of his thinking worldwide. Organised into three broad sections, chapters examine Basaglia's work and influence in Italy; in the 'Basaglian' countries of Europe and South America; and in those countries where his influence has either been rejected or significantly modified. The Editors bring together the contributions and draw out the important messages (both positive and negative) for current clinical practice and development within international mental health services.

What does it mean to practice therapy in an existential way? What are the different existential approaches? What are their strengths and limitations? Focusing on practical, face-to-face work with clients, the book introduces students to six existential therapies, highlighting areas of commonality and difference, and discusses key figures and their contributions, including Yalom, van Deurzen, Spinelli, Frankl and Laing. It outlines the critical perspectives and key debates, and presents implications for practice, reflection and further reading. Fully updated to reflect current issues, this book now includes: · Sections presenting research evidence for each approach · An extended case study running through the book, demonstrating how different therapies might approach the same case · Chapter overviews, questions for reflection, and additional case studies of actual existential practice.

Laing was one of the most controversial and innovative psychiatrists of modern times. Written by his son, This is the first comprehensive, Candid, and objective biography of the pioneer psychologist and guru who died in 1989. This definitive study di

This challenging book critically examines three forms of contemporary psychology, all displaying various signs of crisis, through analogy with humour associated with three different class perspectives: mainstream psychology; critical psychology; and postpsychology. By fusing the best of the three psychologies with political and cultural critiques, the book poses the question: what if class conflict and the crises of psychology are related? This is precisely the Gordian Knot which Fozooni tries to untangle. First, the author demonstrates how psychology has traditionally veered towards either an upper-class or a middle-class paradigm. With the demise of these two old paradigms a new understanding of psychology is gradually emerging - a postpsychology. Describing how ‘mainstream’ and ‘critical’ psychologies are undergoing late-life crisis, and ‘postpsychology’ is experiencing its birth pangs in an environment hostile to its existence, the book provides an alternative narrative of psychology. The author suggests that whilst all three forms of psychology have contributed to our self-comprehension, it is only postpsychology that possesses the attributes necessary for a global remaking of humanity. Tackling the discipline of psychology head-on, Fozooni pits against it a series of scathing yet tongue-in-cheek critiques, making this fascinating and provocative reading for all students and academics interested in psychology, as well as the general reader.

Blow Your Mindfulness An encyclopedia for the curious and courageous, The Book of Highs catalogs the hundreds of ways humans can alter consciousness, minus drugs and alcohol. Drawn from cultures around the world, here are positive techniques—Self-Hypnosis, Alterations of Breathing, Fervent Prayer, Spinning. And here are “negative” techniques—Self-Flagellation, Sleep Deprivation, Fire Walking. Methods derived from religious and mystic traditions—Transcendental Meditation, Tea Ceremony, Tantric Sex. Methods that use devices, from the domestic Metronome Watching, to the state-of-the-art Brain-Wave Biofeedback, Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Ganzfeld Effect, and Psychedelic Bathtub. Whether you’re looking for a life-changing adventure—like Skydiving—or something to do every day, just to change things up—like Zen Morning Laugh—The Book of Highs will get you there.

A stunning exploration of the relation between desire and psychopathology, The Death of Desire is a unique synthesis of the work of Laing, Freud, Nietzsche, and Heidegger that renders their often difficult concepts brilliantly accessible to and usable by psychotherapists of all persuasions. In bridging a critical gap between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, M. Guy Thompson, one of the leading existential psychoanalysts of our time, firmly re-situates the unconscious – what Freud called "the lost continent of repressed desires" – in phenomenology. In so doing, he provides us with the richest, most compelling phenomenological treatment of the unconscious to date and also makes Freud’s theory of the unconscious newly comprehensible. In this revised and updated second edition to the original published in 1985, M. Guy Thompson takes us inside his soul-searching seven-year apprenticeship with radical psychiatrist R. D. Laing and his cohorts as it unfolded in counterculture London of the 1970s. This rite de passage culminates with a four-year sojourn inside one of Laing’s post-Kingsley Hall asylums, where Laing’s unorthodox conception of treatment dispenses with conventional boundaries between "doctor" and "patient." In this unprecedented exploration, Thompson reveals the secret to Laing’s astonishing alternative to the conventional psychiatric and psychoanalytic treatment schemes. Movingly written and deeply personal, Thompson shows why the very concept of "mental illness" is a misnomer and why sanity and madness should be understood instead as inherently puzzling stratagems that we devise in order to protect ourselves from intolerable mental anguish. The Death of Desire offers a provocative and challenging reappraisal of depth psychotherapy from an existential perspective that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, social scientists, and students of the human condition.

Examining the boundaries between recreational and medicinal drugs in the eyes of the public and the law.

Schizophrenia has been one of psychiatry's most contested diagnostic categories. It has also served as a metaphor for cultural theorists to interpret modern and postmodern understandings of the self. These radical, compelling, and puzzling appropriations of clinical accounts of schizophrenia have been dismissed by many as illegitimate, insensitive and inappropriate. Until now, no attempt has been made to analyse them systematically, nor has their significance for our broader understanding of this most 'ununderstandable' of experiences been addressed. The Sublime Object of Psychiatry is the first book to study representations of schizophrenia across a wide range of disciplines and discourses: biological and phenomenological psychiatry, psychoanalysis, critical psychology, antipsychiatry, and postmodern philosophy. In part one, Woods offers a fresh analysis of the foundational clinical accounts of schizophrenia, concentrating on the work of Emil Kraepelin, Eugen Bleuler, Karl Jaspers, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. In the second part of the book, she examines how these accounts were critiqued, adapted, and mobilised in the 'cultural theory' of R D Laing, Thomas Szasz, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Louis Sass, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Using the aesthetic concept of the sublime as an organising framework, Woods explains how a clinical diagnostic category came to be transformed into a potent metaphor in cultural theory, and how, in that transformation, schizophrenia came to be associated with the everyday experience of modern and postmodern life. Susan Sontag once wrote: 'Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance'. The Sublime Object of Psychiatry does not provide an answer to the question 'What is schizophrenia?', but instead brings clinical and cultural theory into dialogue in order to explain how schizophrenia became 'awash in significance'.

From events in our everyday life to those which stride the international stage, we have come to view the world in increasingly psychological terms. In spite of this, beyond the wants, desires and motivations of the characters who form the centrepiece of these explanatory dramas, the discipline which constitutes the driving force behind the analyses has been largely overlooked. In a series of essays, covering issues from mental health to political governance and war, this book reflects on the nature of psychology as an intellectual endeavour, questions its relationship to the systems of power which shape our lives, and strays from the beaten track to offer new perspectives and voices.