Book Review: R.D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love

*R.D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love by Roberta Russell with R.D. Laing.

As a student of Laing and Cooper since the 70's and 80's, I have been keen to see what will be written about them in the 90's, now that they are no more. Although one needs to keep in mind their emergence in a particular historical, political and philosophical context, I do feel it is important to keep the ideas and spirit of these two brilliant 'psy-conoclasts' alive and well right through to the 21st century.

Cooper has virtually become a forgotten item in the English-speaking world. His books are no longer available in the commercial bookshops both here and in America - although royalties still accrue from some of his continental translations. The manuscript he was working on with Marine Zecca prior to his death in 1986, tentatively titled "The Geometry of Freedom" has not appeared, although Marine will try to incorporate aspects of it into some writing of her own. Other than my own obituary in ASYLUM Vol 1, No 3 and that of Clancy Sigal in the Guardian (July '86) the 80's produced very little about him - a brief mention in Peter Sedgewick's book, Psychopolitics (1982), an article in Open Mind by Ron Lacey (No 3 -June/July, 1983) and some critical attention in Peter Miller and Nicholas Rose's book The Power of Psychiatry (1986). Quelle dommage! - as he had virtually anticipated everything that Jeff Masson has been saying recently about psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It will be my personal pet project in the 90's to ensure that one or two of his books are reprinted - at least Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry (1967) and The Language of Madness (1978) - hopefully to act as some inspiration for

a different kind of change in the mental health services than what we are presently observing.

Laing has fared better and this may simply reflect his greater appeal to the Anglo-American audience as he was not quite so 'anti-psychiatric' and 'anti-therapy' as his South African colleague. An array of his most popular books are still readily available and his last manuscript The Lies of Love will hopefully, eventually, see the light of day. About a year ago I stumbled upon a little book by Anthony Lunt (a fellow student of Laing's now based in Reading) entitled "Apollo versus the Echomaker" purporting to be a description of 'Laingian therapy' - the first such book that I am aware of, and endorsed by Ronnie's second wife, Jutta. Presently, Adrian Laing, one of Ronnie's sons from his first marriage, is in the process of writing a full scale biography of his father and has been giving several talks around the country about his life and work. Dan Burston, a North American academic psychologist, now based at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh is working on an intellectual biography of Laing entitled "The Life and Work of R.D. Laing" trying to situate his ideas within the context of certain theoretical paradigms prevalent in the social sciences today. In addition there are and have been a number of Festschrifts and tributes to him - one in the offing being put together by Theo Itten, another former student of Laing's, now based in Switzerland, and of course our own Asylum tribute of 3 years ago (Vol 4 No 2). The Society for Existential Analysis also devoted their second annual conference to his work and their second annual journal is a compilation of papers presented there.

So the new 'Laing literature' is beginning to burgeon and Roberta Russell's (née Ottenstein) new book entitled R.D.Laing and Me: Lessons in Love will, I think, occupy a unique and welcome place within it. It is as she says at the beginning 'a true love story' (and simultaneously a self-help book) and chronicles the unfolding of her own personal love affair' with Ronnie Laing. As such it presents us with a rare close up portrait-in-print (complementing that of Victoria Crowe in the Scottish National Gallery) of R.D.Laing, the man, in all his complexity and simplicity.

The story begins in 1980. They meet at a conference of the European Association of Humanistic Psychology in Saragossa, Spain where they have both been invited to speak and do workshops. Roberta, a native New Yorker, having recently emerged as a survivor of rather tragic family circumstances - she lost all of her family members through death between 1969 and 1977, has experience in the fields of computer 'head-hunting' and self-marketing. She has just authored a Report On Effective Psychotherapy: Legislative Testimony". The gist of the report is that the main healing factor in psychotherapy is neither the technique nor the

training (nor the particular school of thought that one adheres to), but the warmth, genuineness and regard (i.e. the degree of empathy) of the therapist for the client (something Carl Rodgers has been saying for years!) In other words positive change is due to the healing effects of a benign human relationship. (Her findings go completely in the face of the current emphasis by the UK Standing Conference on Psychotherapy in the field - where and how does one train to be humane, warm and empathetic?)

In any case she meets Laing at the conference and becomes besotted with him. A year later she proposes to him that he write a sort of self-help book based on her findings and his own conclusions reached after many years of experience in the field. The aim of the book will be to empower people to have a therapeutic' relation with someone else, outside of the confines of professional therapy (i.e. Psychotherapy Between Friends). He counters by proposing that she come to England and do the book with him. By this point her romantic fantasies are off to a flying start!

From the outset they have strikingly different conceptions about the book - how it is to be done and what it should reveal etc. She sees what they are embarking on as something in the nature of 'co-counselling' i.e. a special form of self-help, and that their own relationship should in some sense illustrate the principles that will be incorporated in the book as part of the effort to help people help themselves. She foresees that they will both need to change in the process -her own goals being that she would like to lose 35 lbs and also to find a man to love and be loved by. Self- revelation will therefore be an essential ingredient. Ronnie for his part makes it clear that, although might ideally wish to write a bestseller in America and therefore earn more money than he is at present, he does not see this as 'his problem' and does not wish to change anything about himself or his writing in order to bring this about. Nor does he feel particularly inclined toward self revelation - i.e. - telling his personal story. Check, counter-check.

The main body of the book is therefore an unfolding of their initially stalemated relationship and the point, counterpoint of it is certainly fascinating. Roberta is very much a product of 'the culture of narcissism', (historian Christopher Lasch's description of present-day America). She is positive-thinking, enthusiastic, acquisitive, energetic, action-oriented and success-oriented. She believes that one can master 'emotional economics' as one does any other business. On the other hand, our own master of demystification, Ronald Laing, is sceptical (following in a tradition of Scottish scepticism dating back to David Hume), questioning and challenging - trying to indicate that the human

condition is more complex and paradoxical and cannot be summed up in a few pop psychology cliches or overcome by easy simple-to-do methods (e.g. 22 steps to intimacy). "Perhaps the only thing that needs changing", he says at one point, "is the desire to change". One begins to wonder why he has engaged in writing this kind of book at all!

So Roberta's efforts to engage Laing are continuously punctuated by what she would view as Laing's 'resistance'. She knows that in order to be true to herself, she has to tell him what she really thinks - viz - that he is depressed, defensive, preoccupied by his matrimonial betrayal, not open to new ideas, and that his writing suffers from being circumscribed and irrelevant. At the same time she doesn't want to alienate him completely. Eventually her efforts prevail and their taped dialogues become the basis of the book - each chapter focused around a particular 'therapeutic' idea or concept ("Pull Out Your Poison Arrow", "Combating Self-Defeating Metaphors", "Maximizing Possible Rejections", etc). What emerges (for her at least) is an endearing friendship and her own struggle in coming to terms with the fact that Laing does not reciprocate her romantic designs on him. It is apparent that she perceives this as having been a very difficult but ultimately 'therapeutic' process for her and she sees the relationship with Laing as having allowed her to eventually open new doors in her life - including meeting her present mate, Harold.

On the whole then, as a portrait of Laing and the relationship which developed between them, the book is very attractive. But it does have its drawbacks - Roberta's language (and ultimately her Weltanschauung) is swathed in pop psychology cliches which I found personally off-putting and tended to superficialize what she was saying. And, as a self-help book, one could ask why read this one rather than "The Seven Most Effective Habits of Highly Successful People" or "Dysfunctional and Co-dependent No More" Or even "Hey, if I'm so Wonderful, How come I'm still single?". There are literally hundreds of such 'self-help' books which deluge the shelves of most commercial North American bookshops. But what does Roberta's have to offer in this regard, that the others don't already - the wisdom of R.D.Laing? But the wisdom of R.D. Laing is one that says beware all gurus, beware all nice neat doctrines that promise Nirvana. Beware fast food and certainly fast psychology. Not that 'self-help is intrinsically a bad idea - certainly self-help mutual support groups might be a better alternative to professional help. Which opens up some interesting questions. If Laing was engaged in writing a self-help book in the early 80's, did this in some sense reflect his views about professional therapy? If he believed that via a more spontaneous less formal kind of relationship (i.e. psychotherapy between friends) one could have an equally 'therapeutic' experience did he think that professional training was unnecessary - or worse - even harmful? Was that part of his increasing attraction to humanistic psychology and part of the explanation for his break with the Philadelphia Association (around the same time) - the professional psychotherapy organisation that he initially started and inspired. Had he had change of heart about the whole thing? These are important questions and ones that now can only be answered by those who were closest to him at that time. Perhaps Roberta knows. Her book would seem to indicate something of that nature.

One last criticism, I'm not certain how much this book will speak to the psychiatrically oppressed. Certainly there is very little in it dealing explicitly with the politics of mental health. There is no real critique of contemporary psychiatric practice (although she does recount her horror at the time that her parents were arranging for her younger brother Jay to have ECT). She even conceives the father diabolical idea of bringing Laing together with Dr Donald Klein, director of psychiatric research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Yikes! Wasn't she around when Ronnie did satirical readings from DSM-III?

In the 60s there was a popular American T.V. programme that used to end each week with the narrative: "There are 8,000,000 stories in the Naked City" and Roberta's has certainly been one of them.

Steven Ticktin