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Daniel Burston chronicles Laing's meteoric rise to fame as one of the first media psychogurus of the century, and his spiraling decline in the late seventies and eighties. Here are the successes: Laing's emergence as a unique voice on the psychiatric scene with his first book, The Divided Self, in 1960; his forthright and articulate challenges to conventional wisdom on the origins, meaning, and treatment of mental disturbances; his pioneering work on the families of schizophrenics, Sanity, Madness and the Family (coauthored with A. Esterson). Here as well are Laing's more dubious moments, personal and professional, including the bizarre experiment with psychotic patients at Kingsley Hall. Burston traces many of Laing's controversial ideas and therapeutic innovations to a difficult childhood and adolescence in Glasgow and troubling experiences as an army doctor; he also offers a measured assessment of these ideas and techniques.

The R. D. Laing who emerges from these pages is a singular combination of skeptic and visionary, an original thinker whose profound contradictions have eclipsed the true merit of his work. In telling his story, Burston gives us an unforgettable portrait of an anguished human being and, in analyzing his work, recovers Laing's achievement for posterity.

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R. D. Laing: Social Misfit and Theorist of Schizophrenia.

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In the 1960s several different movements became prevalent which operated in direct opposition to the institution of psychiatry, which often included forced medicating, confinement, and electroshock and psychosurgery on individuals deemed to be mentally ill. These individuals included both leftists (radical leftists, Marxists, and other liberals) as well as �libertarian rightists� and those who argued for individual responsibility attempting to re-politicize the process of denying civil rights to certain individuals deemed insane, among whom were many in the psychedelic counter-culture, cult groups including Scientology, various indiduals believing themselves to have been wronged by the psychiatric establishment and often identifying themselves as �psychiatric survivors�, and even some prominent psychiatrists � the two most notorious such �anti-psychiatrists� being Thomas Szasz (libertarian rightist and opponent of coercive �treatment�) and R. D. Laing (whose politiics ranged from the Marxist left to the far right). _The Wing of Madness_ is a biography of the Scottish maverick psychiatrist R. D. Laing and his contributions to our understanding of the schizoid/schizophrenic mode of being-in-the-world in terms of existentialist theory. Laing had a strange relationship to the medical establishment beginning as a psychiatrist who developed an interest in the field possibly as a result of his own troubled upbringing (his mother frequently prone to depression and possibly psychosis and his father prone to difficult bouts as well). Laing himself would come to embrace both traditional Christianity (in the form of Presbyterianism), but also Gnosticism and ancient mysticisms, as well as Eastern religions and philosophy, and the phenomenological philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, and the existentialism of Merleau-Ponty and Jean Paul Sartre. For a time Laing flirted with Marxism, but later would claim that he had embraced the right (although exactly to what extent this was to be interpreted was difficult to determine). Critics of Laing frequently argued that he idealized and romanticized madness (especially the psychotic break that occurs in schizophrenia and other schizoid type disorders). Indeed, for Laing, madness often was an entirely reasonable attempt to deal with a difficult situation brought about particularly by stresses demanded from social conformity, economic conditions, and in particular the family life. Indeed, for Laing the family often was a means whereby violence was inflicted upon the individual (the family revolving around several �enduring myths� which became cracked at the point of madness seen in schizophrenia for example). Using these sorts of theories, Laing argued that schizophrenia and other psychotic type disorders should be allowed to follow out their course, perhaps being a stage in a process necessary for individual growth. Thus, he opposed treatment which often included medication into a stupor, electroshock, confinement, and insulin shock therapy or in extremely difficult cases even dangerous psycho-surgeries. At the time this was a radical position to take, which could be interpreted as one of the extreme left (arguing for the rights of the �oppressed� as insane) or even as a conservative measure (arguing for a return to a time when the mentally ill were treated with less invasive measures). Towards the end of his life, Laing moved away from some of these ideas, and perhaps turned closer towards the more generally accepted theory of a biological basis for psychosis (particularly schizophrenia, as brain disorder). Also, Laing frequently encountered conflict with medical authority and other famous psychiatrists and thinkers and was eventually suspended from his medical practice. Laing died playing tennis; however, before his death Laing experienced several severe bouts of depression and frequently resorted to alcohol - drinking himself into a stupor. It may have been his own inability to cope with certain aspects of his life which led Laing to see the mad in such a compassionate (indeed, romanticized) light. Indeed, Laing raises for the thinking individual many questions about the nature of sanity and madness, the nature of man and normality, the roles of society on the individual, the nature of family life and myth in family life, the role of abuse on man to his fellow man, and ultimately about the very nature of reality itself as seen in the light of the eyes of the mentally ill individual. This book offers a good biography of Laing, an anti-psychiatrist who combined insights from both religious mysticism and phenomenology and existential philosophy into a political thesis about the nature of psychosis and schizoid/schizophrenic being-in-the-world. While I believe that the role of biological processes in mental illness is entirely underrated by individuals like Laing and Szasz, nevertheless, their books offer a unique alternative look at the medical establishment which often foists unfair measures upon those who are merely deemed different.

"Give us bread but also give us roses"

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For anyone who has been thrilled by any of Laing's books, as I had been, reading a biography of Laing can be a sad experience. Burston doesn't shrink from the disappointing aspects of Laing, but he finds great and continuing value in Laing's work while also reminding us of Laing's better side. Burston has divided the biograpy roughly in half. First comes the standard chronological presentation, then an analysis of Laing's thoughts and concerns. This meaty but quite readable analysis includes assessment of Laing's philosophical assumptions, his position on psychoanalysis, and his place within psychiatry. Burston effectively reminds us that, whatever his failings and however large his fall from popularity, Laing's work still presents challenges and promises values which we would be foolish to ignore. Blessed with a great mind, R.D. Laing also forged a wonderful heart: too many other therapists forget that our suffering needs both.

The Guru's Dilemma

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This really should be read along with the biography by hy Ronald Laing's son, Adrian Laing. Adrian Laing is much more critical. Although he is a lawyer and Burston a psychologist, I think Adrian Laing shows more understanding of RD Laing's place in psychiatry. Both books are very readable (which is the reason for the 5 stars) because Laing's life makes makes a good story. By the end of the 1960's Laing was a dinosaur rather than an innovator. He was still blaming parents for their children's mental illness and advocating treating schizophrenia without medication. When I came to America in 1963 psychanalysis was dominant in psychiatry here. By the time time Laing died in 1989, psychanalysis was no longer taken seriously by most psychiatrists. I suspect that part of the reason for Laing's tragic self-destructive behavior came from the dawning realization that his treatment methods did not work for schizophrenia. Unlike Bateson and many of the American neo-Freudians, who were not MD's, he was a psychiatrist who undertook clinical responsibilities. Having set himself up, or been set up, as an omniscient healer he found he could not help those who turned to him.