Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics
by R. D. Laing, Aaron Esterson
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In the late 1950s the psychiatrist R.D.Laing and psychoanalyst Aaron Esterson spent five years interviewing eleven families of female patients diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'. Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family. But it was the conclusions they drew from their research that caused such controversy: they suggest that some forms show more of mental disorder are only comprehensible within their social and family contexts; their symptoms the manifestations of people struggling to live in untenable situations. Sanity, Madness and the Family was met with widespread hostility by the psychiatric profession on its first publication, where the prevailing view was to treat psychosis as a medical problem to be solved. Yet it has done a great deal to draw attention to the complex and contested nature of psychosis. Above all, Laing and Esterson thought that if you understood the patient's world their apparent madness would become socially intelligible. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Hilary Mantel. show lessTags
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This book blew my world open. Yes, people become schizophrenic due to their environment. Yes, people can be driven to madness by their families, when they are told their pain is their fault, or not real, and they are isolated, and are forced to accept a reality that is not true to their experience. It is clear in each of these families how the individuals went crazy, and in their own way, are the sanest people in their families, and have moments of connected clarity about their family life and dynamics that the rest of the family is denying the reality of. This is an important book, that when taken seriously, is perhaps the truest and most accurate account of how a person becomes 'crazy'. Please read it.
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42+ Works 5,542 Members
Ronald David Laing, a prominent British psychoanalyst, won wide attention in the United States, especially among young people, for his questioning of many of the old concepts of what is "normal" and what is "insane" in a world that he sees as infinitely dangerous in the hands of "normal" people. Born and educated in Glasgow, Scotland, Laing show more questioned many of the basic assumptions of Western culture. Taking the role of social critic, he wrote in The Politics of Experience (1967): "A little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is a delusion. The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from "reality' than many of the people on whom the label "psychotic' is affixed." Much of Laing's work was in the field of schizophrenia. Philosophical and humanist in approach, he questioned many of the cut-and-dried classifications for the mentally ill, whom he regarded with great compassion; he looked beyond the "case" to the man or woman trying to come to grips with life in the broadest human context. He was a compelling writer of great literary skill who brought to his studies a worldview that reached far beyond the confines of his profession. Until his death, Laing continued to expand on his early themes, which are also evident in his poetry, interviews, and conversations with children. show less
3 Works 485 Members
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Aldusserien (348)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics
- Original title
- Sanity, Madness and the Family. Families of Schizophrenics
- Original publication date
- 1964
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 616.89 — Applied science & technology Medicine & health Diseases, Allergies, Skin Conditions Nervous Disorders: Autism, Anorexia, OCD Mental disorders: bi-polar/schizophrenia
- LCC
- RC514 .L273 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Psychiatry Psychopathology Psychoses
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 440
- Popularity
- 70,070
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- 7 — Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
- ASINs
- 14
