photographs, - wordpress.com€¦ · 10/18/13 sls r.d. laing biography...

10/18/13 SLS · R.D. Laing Biography

1/9laingsociety.org/biograph.htm

Home

·Biography·

Member Login

·Bibliography·

Books

Essays

Bios/Critiques

Recordings

Quotations

·Colloquia·

In Person

Art & Literature

Psychotherapy

Philosophy &Religion

Peace & Conflict

Shamanism &Rebirth

Politics ofDiagnosis

TherapeuticCommunities

·SLS Annual·

Submit a Paper

·About theSLS·

�Photographs,articles anddownloads

are available in the'Festwebschrift'in Honour of the

75th Anniversary ofR.D. Laing's

BirthdayOctober 7, 2002

�Born in 1927 into a middle class Presbyterian family, Ronald David

Laing spends his early life in Govanhill, Glasgow, attending the primaryand secondary schools nearby. He has, essentially, a classicaleducation becoming well versed in the cornerstones of Westernintellectual thought. His early passions are reading and music and hisfirst 'existential crisis' comes at the age of 5 when his parents reveal tohim that Santa Claus is really them. This episode seems to resonatethroughout the remainder of his life culminating in the title of the lastbook he was working on shortly before he died viz - The Lies of Love.There is contention as to how deprived these early years were,although there is general consensus that they were materiallyprivileged, albeit, emotionally bleak. One saving grace in the equationseems to be the close musical relation that develops between Ronnieand his own father, David Park McNair, perhaps offsetting the moreemotionally distant one with his mother, Amelia.

After completing secondary school, Laing attends GlasgowUniversity (1945-51) studying medicine - ostensibly because it giveshim access to the issues of birth and death - but simultaneouslycontinues his philosophical education acquainting himself with themain contemporary thinkers, particularly in the continental tradition ofphenomenology and existentialism. At the end of medical school hisinterests seem to be moving in the direction of neurology andpsychiatry and his first post is for 6 months in the West of ScotlandNeurosurgical Unit in nearby Killearn where the issue of lobotomy is ahighly contentious and debated issue amongst the staff. At the end ofthis stint Ronnie conceives the idea of going to study with Karl Jaspersin Basel, but this is thwarted by his being called up into the BritishArmy where he spends the next 2 years (1951-3) working as apsychiatrist. (It is here in Netley near Southhampton that he meets andmarries his first wife, a nurse named Anne Hearne.) Thrust into a jungleof traditional psychiatric remedies - drugs, electroshoc., and insulincoma therapy - he begins to question the wisdom of these so-called'treatments' - treatment he believes is how one treats another person -and rather spends his time listening to and talking with his patients,thus commencing his thinking that real treatment (real therapy) is aninterpersonal phenomenon.

After leaving the army, Laing returns to Gartnavel Hospital inGlasgow (1953) where he completes his psychiatric training (1955)obtaining his Diploma in Psychological Medicine (or D.P.M., the



Site Staff

Advisors

Patrons &Sponsors

Join the Society

Contact us

· Resources ·

Search the Site

Notes and Notation

A Timeline

Further Links

About this site

Newsletter

Discussion

Associate site

The InternationalR.D. LaingInstitute

forerunner of our present-day M.R.C.Psych - Member of the RoyalCollege of Psychiatry) in early 1956. Here he conducts his first bit ofresearch (known as the 'Rumpus Room') into what he was later to call'social phenomenology' which provides some evidence for the hardfought lessons (re: the importance of interpersonal relations in the'treatment' of 'chronic schizophrenia') learned in the army. In 1956 hetakes up the post of senior registrar at the Southwestern Hospital underthe tutelage of Professor Ferguson Rogers, and through the latter's linkwith Jock Sutherland, a Scottish psychoanalyst and director of theTavistock clinic in London, Ronnie conceives the master plan ofmoving to tha big city, training as a psychoanalyst at the Institute,working as a registrar/senior registrar at the Tavistock Clinic and doingresearch into the families of 'schizophrenics' at the Tavistock Instituteof Human Relations. He arrives in London at the end of 1956, starts histraining at the end of 1957 (completing it in 1960) going into analysiswith Charles Rycroft (a member of the independent group) and havingMarion Milner and Donald Winnicott as his supervisors. During thisperiod he completes his first book The Divided Self An ExistentialStudy of Madness and Sanity (completed at the end of 1957 andpublished in1960) which represents the culmination of his thinking overthe previous 6 years, is based on the clinical studies he canied out inthe army and subsequently in Glasgow, and focuses on the applicationof Existential/ phenomenological ideas to the so-called 'schizoidcondition'. The author claims that Laing's overall aim at the end of thisprocess is to be able to speak with the authority of a psychoanalyst,and, at the same time, to issue a challenge to the psychoanalyticmovement by trying to persuade its members of the relevance of theexistentia/phenomenological perspective to the understanding ofmentally disturbed patients.

The years 1957-64 which prove to be a highly productive andintensely intellectual period in which Ronnie writes (either himself or asco-author) 6 highly influential books which would ultimately establishhis growing reputation as a force to be reckoned with in thepsychological field, and launch him on the road to fame. BeginningWith The Divided Self 1960, ( a book which probably owes more toKierkegaard than to Winnicott) and it's companion volume Self andOthers, 1961, (the other half as it were, of The Divided Self) he moveson to co-author three books: (1) Sanity Madness and the Family, 1964,with fellow Glaswegian Aaron Esterson, which represents the results oftheir phenomenological research into the families of 'schizophrenics' atthe Tavistock and gives rise, in the popular press, to the rathererroneous notion that what they were really saying was that familiescaused schizophrenia; (2) Interpersonal Perception (1966) with A.R.Lee and H. Phillipson - a rather important but somewhat lessremembered work - which expands on his ideas about social (orinterpersonal) phenomenology, provides the inspiration for his morepopular book of a few years later (i.e. Knots, 1970, and is still used bythe Tavistock today; (3) Reason and Violence: A decade of Sartre'sphilosophy 1950-60, 1964, a joint work with South African born fellow-psychiatrist David Cooper on the later works of Jean Paul Sartre. Sartrerepresents one of the main theoretical influences on Laing's thinking inthe early 60's - the other one being the American studies on thecommunicational anomalies in the families of so-called 'schizophrenics'.By 1964, then, we see the beginning of the formation of Ronnie's publicpersona of guru and prophet, marked by a few appearances on nationaltelevision, several articles about his work, and a number of talks and



papers which he delivers at various conferences and are eventuallybrought together into a book entitled The Politics of Experience, 1967,a highly polemical selection which contains many of the quotations forwhich he became famous throughout the 60s and 70s. On the morepersonal side, it is during this period that Ronnie completes his firstfamily - having 5 children in toto but as his public begins to ascend, sohis private life begins to plummet.

The following years might be described as the period in Laing's lifewhere he decides to put theory into practice (1965-71). After leaving theTavi, and while still director of the Langham Clinic, he founded, withDavid Cooper, Aaron Esterson, John Heaton, Joan Cunnold, SidBriskin, and Clancy Sigal a charitable organization, The PhiladelphiaAssociation, whose purpose is to provide true asylum for those peoplein such states of distress that they would otherwise receive treatmentin a more traditional psychiatric hospital. Initially there are no formallystructured therapeutic arrangements in the first household acquired(Kingsley Hall) and in fact there appears to be a deliberate attempt tobreak down the barrier between doctor and patient. Ronnie's hope isthat the community will furnish evidence for his growing thesis thatmadness is not necessarily a breakdown, but may represent,potentially, a breakthrough into a more authentic way of being (i.e.- thatit is a natural healing process with a beginning, middle, and end) re: thenormal state of alienation to which the majority of us have succumbed.One resident of Kingsley Hall, Mary Barnes, seems to personify thiscentral thesis of Laing's and writes about her experiences in a book sheco-authors with her 'therapist', an American doctor named Joe Berke,entitled Two Accounts of A Journey Through Madness. This era, whichsees Laing at the zenith of his fame, is also marked by the break-up ofhis first family and the commencement of his second with a youngGerman woman, Jutta Werner. (He would eventually have three childrenwith her). In addition the publication of The Politics of Experience,1967, and his appearance in the same year at the Dialectics of Liberationconference organized by the Institute of Phenomenological Studies(represented by Cooper, Berke, and Redler) seems to confirm Ronnie'salleged membership in the New Left. But, in fact, he was angry withCooper for having publicly identified him with the movement of 'anti-psychiatry' - a term coined by Cooper, (Adrian refers to this as theheight of the 'Guru Wars') and just at the point where it was expectedthat Ronnie would write the definitive politics of mental health, he, infact, withdraws from that domain - his interests becoming much moreintrospective and less concerned with schizophrenia, families, andradical psychiatry. Partly due to financial pressure, (according to theauthor), he publishes Knots, 1970, which becomes a highly successfulbook and acts as a transition for him to the more literary world ofpoetry. At this juncture Kingsley Hall closes and Laing decides thetime is ripe for him to take a sabbatical year in Sri Lanka and Indiadevoting himself to Theravedic Buddhist meditation. In preparation hecloses his private practice in Wimpole St. (where, during the 60s, hehad conducted sessions in LSD therapy), puts the finishing touches onThe Politics of the Family, 1971, a small book containing a collection oftalks given to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1968,and essentially hands the reigns of the Philadelphia Association overto John Heaton (clinical supervision), Leon Redler (the studyprogramme) and Sid Briskin (administration).

Then proceed Ronnie's life during the 70s and 80s. After his return



from the east, he discovers that the London scene has changed. A newPhiladelphia Association has virtually emerged (most of the originalmembers having left and gone their separate ways), one which issomewhat less focused on families and schizophrenia and much moreorganized, with a wide-ranging study programme (drawing on thedisciplines of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, anthropology(especially through the presence of Francis Huxley), yoga andmeditation), and a training programme in individual and communitypsychotherapy. In addition, an 'RD.Laing industry' begins to emergewith a number of published secondary books in which the variousauthors jostle amongst themselves re: what R.D.Laing really meant andsaid (e.g.1.- A Fontana Modern Masters on Laing by Prof. Edgar Z.Friedenberg and 2.- Laing and Anti-psychiatry a Penguin compendiumof articles edited by R Boyers and R Orrill). Laing decides that this is agood time to do a major lecture tour of the U.S. and when he returns hisinterests begin to crystallise around the politics of the birth processand the importance of intrauterine life. Inspired by the work ofAmerican psychotherapist Elizabeth Fehr, Ronnie begins to develop ateam offering 'rebirthing workshops' in which one designated personchooses to re-experience the struggle of trying to break out of the birthcanal represented by the remaining members of the group whosurround him/her. This culminates in the publication of The Facts ofLife, 1976, but without the same critical acclaim of some of his previousworks (another work, The Politics of Birth, never sees the light of day),and with the identification of Ronnie as a proponent of natural birth.

By 1978, after the publication of Do You Really Love Me, 1977, andwith two more small books on the way: Conversations with Children,1978 and Sonnets, 1979, and with Ronnie's new interests taking himmore into the orbit of humanistic psychology, the gulf between himselfand those of his colleagues (Heaton, Chriss and Haya Oakley, PaulZeal) within the Philadelphia Association more interested in aphilosophically informed psychoanalysis begins to widen. The realturning point seems to come in 1980. Shortly after the death of one ofhis closest colleagues in the Philadelphia Association viz, HughCrawford, Ronnie attends a conference in Saragossa, Spain where,apparently, his wife has a short affair with a German lawyer, and when,he subsequently finds out about it 'all hell breaks loose', according toAdrian, and his drinking, which had increased throughout the 70sreaches 'unbearable new heights' (It is at this same conference that hemeets American psychologist Roberta Russell who will eventuallypublish a book about him entitled RD.Laing and Me: Lessons in Love).After this, his behaviour, as experienced by a number of colleagues inthe PA becomes intolerable and this culminates in his formalresignation as chairperson in 1981. In the aftermath of this Ronniebegins to gather a 'new crew' together and has in mind to start a newproject, valiantly galvanized by Kevin O'Sullivan, and eventually calledSt. Oran's Trust'. He publishes The Voice of Experience in 1982 and thefirst half of his autobiography in Wisdom, Madness, and Folly in 1985.But by this point his marriage with Jutta has broken down and hespends the rest of his life together with his personal assistant of some 5years standing Marguerita Romayne-Kendon. They eventually move tothe United States (1986) and return to a small town in Austria in 1988where Ronnie spends his remaining days working on his last, and stillunpublished, manuscript, The Lies of Love. By this point a number ofincidents have led to his resignation from the General Medical Council(1987). He ultimately dies of a heart attack while playing tennis in the



south of France.

All of the above is a rough synopsis of of the professional life of anextraordinarily spirited individual who saw through the sham, the love-lies, of so called normal, conventional, existence and envisioned (andenacted) a way of living and being that was much more truthful (andsometimes the truth hurts!) and authentic. (When he told David Cooperin the late 70s that there wasn't one of his so-called 'disciples' in thePhiladelphia Association that was worth his or her salt, he meant it.And when he said, at the end of the 60s, as the author claims, that'Kingsley Hall never happened' he probably meant that too). Hechallenged the orthodoxies (both in theory and in practice) of hisprofession and time precisely to the extent that they seemed toreinforce a desiccated version of quotidian existence. Of course thisspiritedness potentially does have its dark or negative side. I hope I amnot one of those 'die-hard Laingians' who appear to say that everythingRonnie Laing did and said was golden. But I do think it is important toappreciate the uniqueness of his spirit and the extraordinarilysignificant contribution he has made to psychiatry and psychology.

There remain a number of questions that are still unanswered. Forexample, what exactly was the evolution of Ronnie's critique of thewhole medical model of psychiatry, i.e.- his challenge to the notion of'mental illness' as such (not just the concept of schizophrenia). Whatprecisely was Ronnie's approach to individual psychotherapy, apractice that he kept active alongside of his communal work in the PA?What can be derived from a close study of firsthand accounts of someof his 'patients' experience of therapy with him? The only publishedbook I know of that describes his approach is Apollo VersustheEchomaker, 1992, by Anthony Lunt. Also what were the specificnature of those mysterious splits that led to the parting of the ways ofpeople like Cooper, Schatzman, Berke, etc. And why did he ever decideto train in traditional psychoanalysis when he seems to have embracedmore philosophical traditions? Even Charles Rycroft, Ronnie's analyst,in a recent public debate with Adrian admitted that it was stillsomewhat of a mystery to him why Ronnie had done so. These arecertainly questions to which it would be nice to have answers.

by Stephen Ticktin,adapted froma review of R.D. Laing: A Biography, by Adrian Laing

Chronology

7th October 1927. Born in Govanhill, Glasgow, Scotland. Only son ofDavid McNair Laing and Amelia Laing nee Kirkwood. During thepregnancy, his mother constantly concealed the fact that she was

pregnant by wearing a heavy overcoat whenever she went out. RonaldLaing claimed later to remember his moment of birth.

August 1932. Began to attend John Cuthbertson Primary School,Glasgow, aged four.

1936-1945. Attended Hutcheson's Boys' Grammar School, Glasgow,where he was an excellent student. Studied the Classics extensively.Learned Greek and Latin. Showed exceptional musical ability. Was



elected as a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music on 30th March1944, and an associate of the Royal College of Music in April 1945.Read numerous works of philosophy while still at school, including

Freud, Marx, Nietsche and especially Kierkegaard.

1945-51. Studied Medicine at Glasgow University. Prominent memberof the university Debating Club and the Mountaineering Club. Met his

first girlfriend, a French exchange student called Marcelle Vincent.Failed his final exams early 1950, which he successfully resat in

December 1950. Spent a brief period as a houseman on a psychiatricward, which inspired him to pursue psychiatry. During this period he

met Aaron Esterson, with whom he later co-authored Sanity, Madnessand the Family.

1951. Spent six months working as an internist at the KillearnNeurosurgical Unit, near Glasgow.

1951-53. Conscripted as an officer into the Royal Army Medical Corps.Posted to the British Army Psychiatric Unit, Netley, near Southampton,

and then to the Military Hospital at Catterick, Yorkshire.

11th October 1952. Married his girlfriend Anne Hearne, who hadbecome pregnant.

7th December 1952. His wife Anne gave birth to a girl whom theynamed, Fiona.

July 1953. Published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Army MedicalCorps - 'An Instance of the Ganser Syndrome.'

Late 1953-56. Left the army. Went to Gartnavel Royal Mental Hospital,Glasgow, to complete his psychiatric training. There he set up an

experimental treatment setting - the 'Rumpus Room', whereschizophrenic patients spent time in a comfortable room. Both staff andpatients wore normal clothes, and patients were allowed to spent timedoing activites such as cooking and art, the idea being to provide a

setting where patients could respond to staff and each other in a social,rather than institutional setting. The patients all showed a noticableimprovement in behaviour as a result of this. Later moved to a senior

registrar's post at the Southern General Hospital.

September 1954. Laing's second daughter, Susan, was born.

November 1955. A third daughter, Karen, was born.

1st January 1956. Qualified as a psychiatrist.

May 1956. Read Colin Wilson's recently published book The Outsider,which he vowed to emulate. Began writing The Divided Self.

Late 1956. Appointed as a senior registrar at the Tavistock Clinic,London. Accepted for training as a psychoanalyst by the Institute of

Psychoanalysis.

1957. A son, Paul was born.

1958. Began the research that led to Sanity, Madness and the Family.



Also began a series of seminars that involved him with a number ofpeople who were to go on to become important collaborators, including

Aaron Esterson and David Cooper.

April 1958. Adrian Laing born.

1960. The Divided Self published by Tavistock Publications. The bookreceived favourable reviews but at first did not sell well. Laing qualifiedas a psychoanalyst and set up a private practice at 21 Wimpole Street,

London. Began to experiment with drugs, especially LSD.

1961. Self and Others published by Tavistock Publications.

Early 1962. Met Gregory Bateson, another important collaborator,while on a research trip in the United States. By this time his marriage

was beginning to break up, and he began an affair with a Daily Expressjournalist called Sally Vincent. Appointed Clinical Director of the

Langham Clinic in London.

1963. Began to appear in the popular media.

1964. Wrote most of the articles that were later compiled into ThePolitics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. Appeared on Britishtelevision five times. Sanity, Madness and the Family, which had beenco-authored with Aaron Esterson was published, as was Reason andViolence, which was co-authored with David Cooper. Met Timothy

Leary in New York.

1965. Started another affair with a German graphics designer calledJutta Werner. The Divided Self, reissued by Penguin Books, became an

immediate bestseller. Opened the Kingsley Hall project with AaronEsterson, David Cooper and others. This was an experimental, non-

hierarchical community, were schizophrenics were given space to workthrough their psychoses without resort to drugs, ECT or surgery.

Inspiration came from Laing's 'Rumpus Room' project, Cooper's 'Villa21', a community for schizophrenics with no distinctions made between

staff and patients, and Esterson's experiences of a kibbutz forschizophrenics in Israel.

15th to 30th July 1967. Took part in the Dialectics of LiberationCongress, intended to bring together left wing politics and

pschoanalysis. Gave a speech entitled 'The Obvious', which was laterpublished in an anthology of speeches from the congress.

1967. The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, his mostcommercially successful book, published by Penguin in Britain and

Pantheon in the US.

September 1967. His girlfriend Jutta Werner gave birth to a son, Adam.

1970. The Kingsley Hall Project closed.

April 1970. Had a second child by Jutta Werner, a girl called Natasha.

1971. Knots published by Penguin in Britain and Pantheon in the US.

March 1971. Went to Ceylon with Werner and their two children,



where he spent two months studying meditation in a Buddhist retreat.After their visas expired, they moved on to India, where Laing spent

three weeks studying under Gangroti Baba, a Hindu ascetic, whoinitiated Laing into the cult of the Hindu goddess Kali. Also spent timelearning Sanskrit and visiting Govinda Lama, who had been a guru to

Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert.

April 1972. Returned to London.

5th November to 8th December 1972. Embarked on a lecture tour of theUnited States. Appeared on TV with Norman Mailer. Met Elizabeth

Fehr, a psychotherapist who used 'rebirthing' psychodramas to treatpatients. Laing would go on to adopt these rebirthing techniques

himself.

Late 1973. Began running regular rebirthing sessions.

Valentine's Day, 1974. Married Jutta Werner.

24th June 1975. Max, his third child with Jutta, was born.

1976. Do You Love Me? and The Facts of Life published. These workssold poorly in Britain and America, but were popular in continental

Europe.

March 1976. Susie Laing, his daughter from his first marriage, died ofleukaemia.

1978. Conversations With Children published.

21st April 1978. Laing's father died at 5.15pm, the exact time of Laing'sbirth.

September 1980. Took part in a three week conference, 'ThePsychotherapy of the Future', at Zaragosa, Spain. Other notable figures

included Fritjof Capra, Stanislav Grof, Jean Houston and Rollo May.

15th September 1984. Ronald's 9th child, Benjamin, was born to hisgirlfriend Sue Sunkel.

February 1985. His autobiography, Wisdom, Madness and Folly, waspublished. A portrait of Laing was unveiled at the National Portrait

Gallery of Scotland.

1986. Divorced from Jutta Laing.

1987. Was forced into resigning from the medical register of theGeneral Medical Council, effectively preventing him from practicing

medicine.

6th January 1988. A son, Charles, was born to Marguerite (néeRomayne-Kendon) and Ronald Laing

1988. Participated in a Canadian documentary entitled Did You Used toBe R.D. Laing?

23rd August 1989. Died of a heart attack while playing tennis in St.



Tropez, France.

�

Comments, suggestions, or problems in the display of this page would be appreciated by theadmin. Thanks.

photographs, - wordpress.com€¦ · 10/18/13 sls r.d. laing biography...

Documents