Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-57

by R.D. Laing

This remarkable autobiography charts the subtle horrors of Laing's own upbringing in a resolutely "respectable" Scottish family in the 1940s. The author's lucid and witty prose offers some unforgettable personal experiences and a host of cultural, political and professional insights as he reflects on the growing unease he came to feel in his role as psychiatrist in a society "destroying itself by violence masquerading as love."

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, History, Neuroscience, Psychiatry

146 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Ronald David Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness – in particular, the subjective experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder.

Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement although he rejected the label.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started developing an interest in psychology upon entering college. The department there, however, was behaviorist in orientation, so most of the reading was done on my own or through the means of independent studies directed by members of that and one other department. It was then that I discovered Laing as well as other psychologists at the fringes of the discipline, figures such as C.G. Jung, T. Szasz, L. Binswanger, K. Jaspers, E. Neumann, E. Fromm, B.F. Skinner etc.
Although he denies the association, Laing is often classified an 'anti-psychologist'. This book, an autobiography covering his formative first thirty years, contains the denial as well as ample reason to descry such a connection. For, though trained as a psychiatrist and neurologist, partly in the British military, partly in public institutions, Laing came to question many of the underlying assumptions and common practices of his profession. Cases are adduced to illustrate and substantiate his eventual position. Stories from his childhood help explain the origins of his particular critical sensitivities. While not an anti-psychologist in any strong sense, Laing certainly developed into a humanistic one.
Laing does an exceptionally good job motivating his considered positions as regards the practices of psychotherapy. He writes and argues convincingly--at least for one of my own particular critical sensitivities. He also writes very well. The book was a pleasure.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This provides some experiential context to his prior work. It doesn't go into quite as much psychological or philosophical depth, but the pithy insights are there. And you learn a bit more about his personal and professional background.

Laing was cognizant of power imbalance before it was cool. He spoke out against medical abuse, so of course he's remembered as being "anti-psychiatry." Sadly, not much has changed in the psychiatric field. His body of work should be required reading.

[Yousef Nabil · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب أكثر بكثير من رائع . طبيب نفسى يحاور أساليب الطب النفسى الحديث ، ويضع يده على المشكلات الأساسية فى الطب النفسى من خلال رحلته المهنية فى المجال .

كتاب يمتلىء بالغرابة والإدهاش .

[حسين]

كان عندي 15 سنة لما اكتشفت لانج لأول مرة، فاكر إني استمتعت بغرابة الكتاب، كونه أول كتاب في علم النفس أقراه. في السنين الأخيرة حاولت كتير أدور عليه وأفتكر إسمه أثناء اهتمامي المتجدد بعلم النفس لكن فشلت في تذكره، من ناحية تانية خالص ريم أعادت اكتشافي للانج لما رفعت اقتباس له على مدونتها، دورت عليه أكتر من مرة وحفظت إسمه في حال إني قررت أخوض في معرفة العلم دا، صادفته أكتر من مرة بعد كدا، وفي كل مرة كنت حاسس إني أعرفه من زمان، النهاردا مع البحث الدؤوب الصدفة جمعتني بيه تاني وأكدت لي إننا فعلاً كنا نعرف بعض.

[Bibibii · Rating 5 out of 5]

R.D.Laing nagyszerű ember volt. Éreztem, hogy el kell olvassam, meg kell ismerjem, mert közünk van egymáshoz.

A többit pedig el kell rendezzem magamban.

[Aditi · Rating 5 out of 5]

My most favorite psychology book of all times. The frustrations and challenges of being a psychology and the love for people communicated in an autobiography by one of the very good psychiatrists in England. His life-story and work is truly remarkable.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Laing's writing is dry and his memoir comes across as disjointed, with a drawn out focus on his earlier years of life and then, in his description of his professional years, more of a focus on case studies of patients which are meant to illustrate his changing feelings about psychiatry as a discipline. The explanation of his own revelations are brief, however, in comparison to the case studies which left me at times wondering why he had explored certain cases at length.

Nevertheless, the most interesting parts of the book were these brief descriptions of how he came to question certain norms within the profession, such as not speaking to patients diagnosed as schizophrenic because it would feed their psychosis, and in general, the great supposed gap of intelligibility between the sane and the mad. For whatever one might think of Laing's behaviour in his personal life (drinking, womanizing, & his children have described experiences of both abuse and neglect - ironic considering Laing's focus on how family dynamics give rise to mental illness) or the more questionable aspects of his professional behaviour later in his career, after the period described in this book (e.g. taking LSD with his patients) his insistence on seeing patients as people with complex lives - which he emphasizes in this book - was radical in mental health care at the time (and arguably still is in many corners).

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's inarguable that Laing has a way with prose - his writing style is very subtly beautiful, even when discussing perhaps mundane subjects. For this reason, the book was overall enjoyable. The format and things that he decided to include were somewhat odd: some personal anecdotes seemingly for the sake of them, some personal anecdotes to explain why he became interested in x, y, and z, and then just descriptions of important moments in his early years. It wasn't cohesive overall. It did, however, provide a lot of interesting insights into where his beliefs originated. The book gave the impression these ideas seemed to come to him singularly, rather than being part of a such societal movement. I'm not surprised, as he was quite an egotistical man, but it's interesting nonetheless. Overall, quite an enjoyable book and definitely one to read when working closely with Laing's other theoretical works.

[Fahad Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laing was such a complicated and tormented figure, and this book does give you quite a bit of insight as to why.

[أمسية إلهامي · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب يعارض الأساليب التقليدية للعلاج فى الطب النفسى ولكن كان عشوائى و يحتوى على أفكار شخصية غير مدروسة بشكل كاف