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R. D. Laing Biography

Ronald David Laing (/ˈleɪŋ/; 7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness – in particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the chemical and electroshock methods becoming the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day. Taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of mental illness, Laing regarded schizophrenia as a theory not a fact. Though associated in the public mind with anti-psychiatry he rejected the label. Politically, he was regarded as a thinker of the New Left. Laing was portrayed in the film Mad to Be Normal.

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R. D. Laing Quotes

In describing one way of going mad, I shall try to show that there is a comprehensible transition from the sane schizoid way of being-in-the-world to a psychotic way of being-in-the-world.

Comprehensible, Insanity, Mad, Show, Trying

Do not adjust your mind, the fault is in reality.

Adjust, Faults, Mind, Reality

To mystify, in the active sense, is to befuddle, cloud, obscure, mask whatever is going on, whether this be experience, action, or process, or whatever is "the issue. " It induces confusion in the sense that there is failure to see what is "really" being experienced, or being done, or going on, and failure to distinguish or discriminate the actual issues. This entails the substitution of false for true constructions of what is being experienced, being done (praxis), or going on (process), and the substitution of false issues for the actual issues.

Clouds, Confusion, Done, Induces, Issues, Sense

When family relations are no longer harmonious, we have filial children and devoted parents.

Children, Family, Parent, Parents, Relation

A psychiatrist who professes to be a healer of souls, but who keeps people asleep, treats them for waking up, and drugs them asleep again (increasingly effectively as this field of technology sharpens its weapons), helps to drive them crazy.

Crazy, Drive, Effectively, Field, People, Technology

Life is a sexually transmitted disease.

Disease, Funny, Life, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Transmitted

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

Aging, Change, Historical, History, Present, Speeded

We must remember that we are living in an age in which the ground is shifting and the foundations are shaking. I cannot answer for other times and places. Perhaps it has always been so. We know it is true today.

Age, Answers, Foundation, Living, Remember, Times

The human mind has to ask "Who, what, whence, whither, why am I?" And it is very doubtful if the human mind can answer any of these questions.

Answers, Ask, Doubtful, Mind, Whence

We live equally out of our bodies and out of our minds.

Bodies, Body, Live, Mind, Mind Body, Minds

Our civilization represses not only "the instincts", not only sexuality, but any form of transcendence. Among one-dimensional men, it is not surprising that someone with an insistent experience of other dimensions, that he cannot entirely deny or forget, will run the risk either of being destroyed by the others, or of betraying what he knows.

Civilization, Instincts, Men, Running, Transcendence

We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love.

Destroying Ourselves, Effectively, Love, Masquerading, Violence

The psychiatrist must become a fellow traveler with his patient.

Become, Patient, Psychiatry, Traveler

When I go beyond a certain range it's outside of my direct horizon therefore I've got to rely on the writings and personal communications given to me by other people that I know. . . . I've got to try to piece together some tentative information picture of what the whole thing is like, but I'm aware that it becomes more and more speculative as it becomes more and more second, third, fourth hand. And this applies to absolutely everyone.

Communication, Given, Hands, People, Personal, Writing

Each time a new baby is born there is a possibility of reprieve. Each child is a new being, a potential prophet, a new spiritual prince, a new spark of light precipitated into the outer darkness.

Baby, Born, Child, Family, Spiritual

In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.

Awareness, Facts, Full, Self, Simple, Way

Perfection is something we should all strive for. It's a duty and a joy to perfect one's nature. . . The most difficult thing is love. A loveless, driving person that just competes in the rat race is far from perfection in my book.

Book, Loveless, Perfect One, Race

Rule A: Don't. Rule A1: Rule A doesn't exist. Rule A2: Do not discuss the existence or non-existence of Rules A, A1 or A2.

Discuss, Existence, Non Existence, Rule, Rules

We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world - mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt.

Ideal, Mad, Self, Selves, Spiritual

If we can revert to the truth, then a great deal of one's suffering can be erased, because a great deal of one's suffering is based on sheer lies.

Deals, Lying, Revert, Sheer, Suffering

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