R. D. Laing, Sanity, Madness and the Family

Daniel Burston (Duquesne University); Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Domains

Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 1964

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

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Sanity, Madness, and the Family,

published in 1964, was co-authored with Aaron Esterson (1923–1999), another Glaswegian psychiatrist who, like Laing, was deeply versed in existentialism and phenomenology (Esterson 1997). With the help and encouragement of John Bowlby, Director of the Tavistock Clinic, Laing and Esterson studied one hundred families in which one member was diagnosed schizophrenic in London's East End. For the purposes of this study, twenty-five families were eventually selected, and hundreds of hours of interviews took place, most of them in the family's own homes. The interviews were audio-taped and the recordings were transcribed and analysed with the help of social worker Sydney Briskin. This process took five years, from 1958 to 1963, when the original group of…

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1244 words

Citation: Burston, Daniel, Gavin Miller. "Sanity, Madness and the Family". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16849, accessed 23 November 2024.]