The wing of madness - Daniel Burston

When we last heard of R.D. Laing (1927-1989), he was said to be arriving at lectures addled with hashish and brandy, and promoting "rebirthing" techniques to treat prenatal psychological trauma. Reflecting on this spectacle that Laing left the world, we are apt to forget that he was one of the most influential and controversial psychiatrists of the 20th century, whose books sold in the millions in more than 20 languages. Even at the height of his power, however, Ronald Laing was a mystery, a man of many contradictions, and it is this mystery that "The Wing of Madness" explores, searching out both the story of Laing's life and the significance of his work.;Daniel Burston chronicles Laing's rise to fame as one of the first media psychogurus of the century, and his decline in the late 70s and 80s. Here are the successes: Laing's emergence as a voice on the psychiatric scene with his first book, "The Divided Self" in 1960; his forthright and articulate challenges to conventional wisdom or the origins, meaning and treatment of mental disturbances; his work on the families of schizophrenics, "Sanity, Madness and the Family" (coauthored with A. Esterson). Here as well are Laing's more dubious moments, personal and professional, including the experiment with psychotic patients at Kinglsey Hall. Burston traces many of Laing's controversial ideas and therapeutic innovations to a difficult childhood and adolescence in Glasgow and troubling experiences as an army doctor; he also offers a measured assessment of these ideas and techniques.;The R.D. Laing who emerges from these pages is a singular combination of skeptic and visionary, a thinker whose profound contradictions have eclipsed the true merit of his work. In telling his story, Burston gives us a portrait of a troubled human being and, in analyzing his work, recovers Laing's achievement for posterity.