Book Review: R.D. Laing: A Biography

The name 'R.D. Laing' evokes a multiplicity of emotions and stands in itself as a phenomenon. R.D. Laing has been variously described as anything from "a brilliant mind" to being "a nutter"! A paradoxical and highly controversial figure who emerged to fame in the 60's, Laing became, arguably, the most famous psychiatrist since Freud and Jung. By 1967, with the publication of The Bird of Paradise, he was hovering between celebrity and guru status, particularly with student, left wing, hippy and anti-establishment groupings who were questioning and challenging post-war institutional structures. Laing's charisma and mass appeal were closely connected, I think, to his being a powerful presence and fluent writer whose description of 'schizophrenic' and 'schizoid' phenomena could easily be identified with by many of his readers. Indeed, it has been suggested by Emmy van Deurzen-Smith, in a previous issue of this journal, that Laing's approach, being influenced by both psychoanalysis and medicine, continued to be framed in terms of pathology, and that his concept of 'ontological insecurity' pathologises ordinary human experience.

Adrian Laing has written a short biography about his father, deciding "not to attempt an analysis of the professional legacy of R.D. Laing." He rather concentrates on charting the journey of Laing's life, from its beginnings in Glasgow through to his rise to fame and eventual notoriety – from lower-middle class origins to superstar to drunk and relative obscurity. The author catalogues and links episodes sampling Laing's paradoxical nature, needs for attention, power, and, indeed, fame and acclaim – "to establish his name among the giants of psychiatry", though very much at the expense of his relationship with both of his two families, who are portrayed as abandoned, neglected and lost. And all of this in contrast to the author's comment that "if there is one lasting legacy that Ronnie Laing left to the world it was the unquantifiable degree of humanity that his life infused into his profession."

I enjoyed reading this book. A straightforward and journalistic account of Laing's life, it is, as the author admits, essentially limited to a charting of events and lacking any indepth exploration and analysis of the content and intellectual value of his father's work. A more curious reader might ask whether, for example, R.D. Laing and his works (fifteen books, multi-various articles, the formation of the Philadelphia Association as an alternative place of care for psychiatric patients etc. etc.) were merely a symptom of the times? A 'reaction-formation' in tandem with the 60's climate of revolt and unrest? What lasting contribution, therefore, has Laing made to the study of human relations and, indeed, to the practice of psychotherapy? What were the philosophical and psychoanalytical foundations to that contribution? And, finally, what about the workings and vicissitudes of the man himself?

This book, therefore, is a springboard towards a fuller and more comprehensive biography. In that, it certainly succeeds in whetting the appetite! Dr Charles Rycroft (R.D. Laing's own training psychoanalyst) is quoted as describing Laing as "a special case". But what does that mean? And in what context? Likewise, the author gives us information in the context of Laing training as a psychoanalyst at the Institute of Psychoanalysis whose training committee (in a letter to Dr Rycroft) was in conflict as to whether "Dr Laing" should, as "a disturbed and ill person", qualify as a psychoanalyst. This also begs many questions.

Further exploration would be interesting as to why, apart from needs for power and status, Laing wanted to become a psychoanalyst. It is to be remembered that whilst training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, he had already written The Divided Self and was preparing The Self and Others. In both of these books he had laid the foundation stones of his claim to the value of the existential/phenomenological approach, though he never, it is to be noted, abandoned psychoanalytic theory as exemplified by his wrestling with 'unconscious phantasy' and its relation to phenomenology in The Self and Others. In terms of a developing methodology, there was only to follow the excellent Interpersonal Perception published with Phillipson and Lee in 1966. In a sense, therefore, Laing didn't answer his own call for a 'Science of Persons'.

Laing, however, has to be recognised and remembered for his opening of the gates to existential/phenomenological perspectives, leading to a questioning and acknowledgement of the experience (rather than diagnosis) of psychiatric patients. Persons in distress rather than constellations of symptoms. He constantly forced us to think and to question our beliefs and myths. Perhaps it is, then, that Adrian Laing has opened another gate leading to further perspectives of the person of R.D. Laing.

Nick Zinovieff

Readers may like to know that a review of this book by Dr Steve Ticktin will appear in the July edition of the Journal. Dr Ticktin's review of Toxic Psychiatry (Vol 5) will appear in translation in the German Journal Familiendynamik during 1995