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The Language of Madness
Book by Cooper, David
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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145 people want to read
About the author
David Graham Cooper
8 books41 followersDavid Graham Cooper (born 1931 in Cape Town, South Africa – died 29 July 1986 in Paris, France) was a South African-born psychiatrist and theorist who was prominent in the anti-psychiatry movement.
Cooper graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1955. R.D. Laing claimed that Cooper underwent Soviet training to prepare him as an Anti Apartheid communist revolutionary, but after completing his course he never returned to South Africa out of fear that B.O.S.S. would eliminate him. He moved to London, where he worked at several hospitals. From 1961 to 1965 he ran an experimental unit for young people with schizophrenia called Villa 21, which he saw as a revolutionary 'anti-hospital' and a prototype for the later Kingsley Hall Community. In 1965, he was involved with Laing and others in establishing the Philadelphia Association. An "existential Marxist" he left the Philadelphia Association in the 1970s in a disagreement over its lack of political orientation. Cooper coined the term "anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry in 1971.
Cooper graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1955. R.D. Laing claimed that Cooper underwent Soviet training to prepare him as an Anti Apartheid communist revolutionary, but after completing his course he never returned to South Africa out of fear that B.O.S.S. would eliminate him. He moved to London, where he worked at several hospitals. From 1961 to 1965 he ran an experimental unit for young people with schizophrenia called Villa 21, which he saw as a revolutionary 'anti-hospital' and a prototype for the later Kingsley Hall Community. In 1965, he was involved with Laing and others in establishing the Philadelphia Association. An "existential Marxist" he left the Philadelphia Association in the 1970s in a disagreement over its lack of political orientation. Cooper coined the term "anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry in 1971.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 15, 2021
David Cooper is in many ways the closest approximation of the anti-psychiatry, acid-laced, anarchist bogeyman. Anyone who likes to prop up such a figure as a strawman ought to read what he has to say. In some regards, they will be satisfied to find someone making vague claims about how "all delusion is political protest" (something which seems to be easily falsifiable except under the most strictly circumscribed criteria), but they'll also surely be surprised by a genuine attempt to think through the problematic of madness in respect to language, politics, the family.
I found little of interest in his more flamboyant excesses about how life after death as decomposed matter is some sort of "beyond" experience and similar claims about orgasm and madness in language. Such claims tend to boil down to a slogan with very little explanatory power beyond their effect in language: "we must get beyond language through delusion!" "we can surpass individuality through orgasm!" "one can surpass their biological limits in death!" I won't go so far as to say that these things are not surpassable, but Cooper didn't really prove capable of thinking these transgressions beyond the point of merely declaring them and I got very little from these musing beyond what I could get from watching the Matrix or something while very high. At worst, Cooper will begin to outline a genuinely curious line of inquiry and then immediately deflate it with his incendiary, but ultimately quite empty, statements. A good lesson on how not to write about radical politics or madness.
That's the bad. But Cooper (and this is so often forgotten now) was a real connector and people-person. His fingerprints are all over so many organizations, events, and groups around the world such that he must be read if you're interested in alternatives, anti-, or "non"-psychiatry (and his influence is clearly felt here because he invented the latter two terms). Between the cracks of his often goofy philosophizing and acid theorizing is an account of various networks, events, and relationships he helped establish in Mexico, Belgium, France, Brazil, even Japan (almost never thought of as a place with a robust tradition of psychiatry or its anti wing). It's in relation to these networks that he develops his lasting concepts: anti-psychiatry (introduced in an earlier text, but developed here) and "non-psychiatry." He gives a more circumscribed, and useful, definition of anti-psychiatry that rightly locates it as an imminent critique of the repressive and mystifying functions of psychiatry, not as an "outside" position. It is what destroys from the interior, and, in fact, many traditional movements within psychiatry can and ought to be viewed as anti-psychiatry from this perspective. "Non-psychiatry" however refers to the integration of persons or acts normally captured in that field in such a way that they don't appear as psychiatric at all. This is quite different from anti-psychiatry. The distinction is very useful in thinking through, for instance, the interventions of Basaglia in Italian psychiatry, which used both: the anti-psychiatric part was the destruction of the mental hospital from within (smashing walls, opening doors, challenging institutional authority), the non-psychiatric part was the establishment of gardens and community projects that would "catch" potential deviants prior to any interface with the authorities at all.
The appendix on the International Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry is indispensable material for understanding this era of struggle. Cooper's letter to the Network attached at the end is a characteristic mix of insight and vacuous sloganeering.
I found little of interest in his more flamboyant excesses about how life after death as decomposed matter is some sort of "beyond" experience and similar claims about orgasm and madness in language. Such claims tend to boil down to a slogan with very little explanatory power beyond their effect in language: "we must get beyond language through delusion!" "we can surpass individuality through orgasm!" "one can surpass their biological limits in death!" I won't go so far as to say that these things are not surpassable, but Cooper didn't really prove capable of thinking these transgressions beyond the point of merely declaring them and I got very little from these musing beyond what I could get from watching the Matrix or something while very high. At worst, Cooper will begin to outline a genuinely curious line of inquiry and then immediately deflate it with his incendiary, but ultimately quite empty, statements. A good lesson on how not to write about radical politics or madness.
That's the bad. But Cooper (and this is so often forgotten now) was a real connector and people-person. His fingerprints are all over so many organizations, events, and groups around the world such that he must be read if you're interested in alternatives, anti-, or "non"-psychiatry (and his influence is clearly felt here because he invented the latter two terms). Between the cracks of his often goofy philosophizing and acid theorizing is an account of various networks, events, and relationships he helped establish in Mexico, Belgium, France, Brazil, even Japan (almost never thought of as a place with a robust tradition of psychiatry or its anti wing). It's in relation to these networks that he develops his lasting concepts: anti-psychiatry (introduced in an earlier text, but developed here) and "non-psychiatry." He gives a more circumscribed, and useful, definition of anti-psychiatry that rightly locates it as an imminent critique of the repressive and mystifying functions of psychiatry, not as an "outside" position. It is what destroys from the interior, and, in fact, many traditional movements within psychiatry can and ought to be viewed as anti-psychiatry from this perspective. "Non-psychiatry" however refers to the integration of persons or acts normally captured in that field in such a way that they don't appear as psychiatric at all. This is quite different from anti-psychiatry. The distinction is very useful in thinking through, for instance, the interventions of Basaglia in Italian psychiatry, which used both: the anti-psychiatric part was the destruction of the mental hospital from within (smashing walls, opening doors, challenging institutional authority), the non-psychiatric part was the establishment of gardens and community projects that would "catch" potential deviants prior to any interface with the authorities at all.
The appendix on the International Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry is indispensable material for understanding this era of struggle. Cooper's letter to the Network attached at the end is a characteristic mix of insight and vacuous sloganeering.
March 17, 2015
Un libro scritto in un linguaggio abbastanza difficile, soprattutto per il lettore moderno medio. Una riflessione molto interessante su un rinnovato modo di trattare i cosiddetti "malati di mente", accompagnata da una dura ed aperta critica contro il sistema della psichiatria contemporanea all'autore. Infatti la metodologia di trattamento applicata nei manicomi durante gli anni 50-60 del '900 cominciava ad essere vista con scetticismo oltre che con disprezzo da molti esperti nel campo. La totale dipendenza dagli atti violenti come la costrizione in celle, l'utilizzo delle camicie di forza e il massiccio impiego di farmaci che altro non fanno se non destabilizzare ancora di più il soggetto. L'alternativa che Cooper propone è un approccio più umano alla disciplina, da lui chiamata anti-psichiatria, che prevede un contatto più umano con i pazienti, volto a tirar fuori da ogni persona il valore nascosto dalla sua patologia, dalla sua condizione di inferiorità in cui la società capitalista e menefreghista l'ha incasellato. Un saggio critico politicamente schierato, per nulla imparziale, come si dev'essere nella vita, Cooper ha aperto la strada all'approccio umano delle scienze psicologiche e psichiatriche incorniciando le sue teorie in una critica ai governi e ai regimi che opprimono l'individuo e lo rinchiudono nella banalità del conformismo.
September 17, 2021
well, i am very pleased that i can add a new book to my favourites shelf and very rightfully so - it is an astounding analysis of the limitations that we experience in the bureaucratic state capitalism, the bourgeois family and the anonymity of the big city.
despite the author being opposed to religious self-soothing, he points out that renaissance and enlightenment (as opposed to the dark ages) went hand in hand with the capitalist discourse of productivity, obedience, supremacy of "reason", and reactionary conceptions of social reality and that this brought about psychiatry that he calls a non-scientific tool of the ruling ideology which keeps the "peace" by forcing the mad - that are screaming about the madness of our world - into isolation, perpetual marginalization and abuse for profit (of the pharmaceutical companies).
although he gives credit to lacan, he disputes the therapeutic value of psychoanalysis due to its renormalization of the oedipal situation which is a claim that is not encountered often enough.
the only point where i was raising my eyebrows is when he claims that the political metamorphosis includes the changes in our endocrinological set-up. it's only a couple of sentences but it does remind me of progressivist imaginations run-wild that we should refrain from because opponents of proposed concepts might then consider the whole idea as entirely delusional.
nevertheless, david cooper urges us to rethink how and what for we work, how and why we have sex, how and why we use language as we do and i think these are very important thoughts to be had in the midst of the societal and environmental clashes of today. the book challenges us to express ourselves in an utmost full, authentic and creative way and urges us to get away with our conceptions of madness as unintelligible nonsense and the psychiatric intervention as justifiable action against it.
credit is given, where credit is due - gregory bateson(the essay on schizophrenia is must-read!), foucault, deleuze and guattari, thomas szasz and robert laing, but the text is also filled with allusions to erich fromm and remarks that can be connected to zizek, heidegger, leary, phenomenologists and mystics. i do not intend to read more of his works, at least for now, because the synopsis by muradif kulenović claims that this book is cooper's most mature and comprehensive work. it is definitely full of interdisciplinary insight, occasionally tounge-in-cheek hilarious and a source inspiration for personal and social self-inquiry. wonderful, must read!
despite the author being opposed to religious self-soothing, he points out that renaissance and enlightenment (as opposed to the dark ages) went hand in hand with the capitalist discourse of productivity, obedience, supremacy of "reason", and reactionary conceptions of social reality and that this brought about psychiatry that he calls a non-scientific tool of the ruling ideology which keeps the "peace" by forcing the mad - that are screaming about the madness of our world - into isolation, perpetual marginalization and abuse for profit (of the pharmaceutical companies).
although he gives credit to lacan, he disputes the therapeutic value of psychoanalysis due to its renormalization of the oedipal situation which is a claim that is not encountered often enough.
the only point where i was raising my eyebrows is when he claims that the political metamorphosis includes the changes in our endocrinological set-up. it's only a couple of sentences but it does remind me of progressivist imaginations run-wild that we should refrain from because opponents of proposed concepts might then consider the whole idea as entirely delusional.
nevertheless, david cooper urges us to rethink how and what for we work, how and why we have sex, how and why we use language as we do and i think these are very important thoughts to be had in the midst of the societal and environmental clashes of today. the book challenges us to express ourselves in an utmost full, authentic and creative way and urges us to get away with our conceptions of madness as unintelligible nonsense and the psychiatric intervention as justifiable action against it.
credit is given, where credit is due - gregory bateson(the essay on schizophrenia is must-read!), foucault, deleuze and guattari, thomas szasz and robert laing, but the text is also filled with allusions to erich fromm and remarks that can be connected to zizek, heidegger, leary, phenomenologists and mystics. i do not intend to read more of his works, at least for now, because the synopsis by muradif kulenović claims that this book is cooper's most mature and comprehensive work. it is definitely full of interdisciplinary insight, occasionally tounge-in-cheek hilarious and a source inspiration for personal and social self-inquiry. wonderful, must read!
December 1, 2024
3.5⭐
It might seem strange to give such a high rating to a book that despite its intention to be a force of wakening of observation of the violence of capitalism wihout doubt is more controversial than anything else, as it dissects practically all jerarquized institutions (which are actually all of them) as they represent and practice repression on individuals. So with this ehavy critique, it's difficult for someone who isn't a socialist (though sympathising) to agree with what require to be very polarizing mindsets that must be inclined to this sociopolitical "structure", in quotation marks because despite the book talking more about socialism there's definetely a strong anarchich mindset from the author.
So yes, at times I disagreed with him, thought him a little contradictory, and even a little "mad".
But Cooper did present an interesting thesis, so despite me not agreeing with many of hia anti phsiquiatry policies I thought he was insightful and bright for a very long period of the book. He managed me to be self analytical and made me aware of many things, so I can't deny I enjoyed the book and the ideas planted in it. Foucault is next.
It might seem strange to give such a high rating to a book that despite its intention to be a force of wakening of observation of the violence of capitalism wihout doubt is more controversial than anything else, as it dissects practically all jerarquized institutions (which are actually all of them) as they represent and practice repression on individuals. So with this ehavy critique, it's difficult for someone who isn't a socialist (though sympathising) to agree with what require to be very polarizing mindsets that must be inclined to this sociopolitical "structure", in quotation marks because despite the book talking more about socialism there's definetely a strong anarchich mindset from the author.
So yes, at times I disagreed with him, thought him a little contradictory, and even a little "mad".
But Cooper did present an interesting thesis, so despite me not agreeing with many of hia anti phsiquiatry policies I thought he was insightful and bright for a very long period of the book. He managed me to be self analytical and made me aware of many things, so I can't deny I enjoyed the book and the ideas planted in it. Foucault is next.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews