The crucible of experience : R.D. Laing and the crisis of psychotherapy / Daniel Burston.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Burston, Daniel, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Laing, R. D. (Ronald David), 1927-1989.
• Psychotherapy--Philosophy.
• Existential psychotherapy.
• Antipsychiatry.
• Psychotherapy.
• Psychiatrists--Scotland--Biography.

Local Subjects:

• Psychotherapy.
• Psychiatrists--Scotland--Biography.

Physical Description:

viii, 168 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2000.

Summary:

• One of the great rebels of psychiatry, R. D. Laing challenged prevailing models of madness and the nature and limits of psychiatric authority. In this brief and lucid book, Laing's widely praised biographer distills the essence of Laing's vision, which was religious and philosophical as well as psychological.
• The Crucible of Experience reveals Laing's philosophical debts to existentialism and phenomenology in his theories of madness and sanity, family theory and family therapy. Daniel Burston offers the first detailed account of Laing's practice as a therapist and of his relationships -- often contentious -- with his friends and sometime disciples. Burston carefully differentiates between Laing and "Laingians", who were often clearer, more confident, and more simplistic than their teacher.
• While he examines Laing's theories of madness, Burston focuses most provocatively on Laing's views of sanity, and normality and on his recognition, toward the end of his life, of the essential place of holiness in human experience. In a powerful last chapter, Burston shows that Laing foresaw the present commercialization of medicine and asked pointed questions about what the meaning of sanity and the future of psychotherapy in such a world could be. In this, as in other matters, Laing's questions of a generation ago remain questions for our time.

Contents:

• 1 An Enigmatic Man 1
• 2 R. D. Laing and Existential Phenomenology 14
• 3 R. D. Laing and Existential Psychotherapy 33
• 4 Families, Phenomenology, and Schizophrenia 57
• 5 Normality and the Numinous 98
• 6 R. D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy 132.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [157]-164) and index.

ISBN:

0674002172

OCLC:

42786354