Sanity, madness, and the family : families of schizophrenics

By:

Laing, R D

Contributor(s):

Esterson, A

Publication details: Penguin, 1964Description: 282pISBN:

0140211578

Subject(s):

NLM classification:

WM 203.

Summary: In the late 1950s the psychiatrist R.D.Laing and psychoanalyst Aaron Esterson spent five years interviewing eleven families of female patients diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'. Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family. But it was the conclusions they drew from their research that caused such controversy: they suggest that some forms of mental disorder are only comprehensible within their social and family contexts; their symptoms the manifestations of people struggling to live in untenable situations. Sanity, Madness and the Family was met with widespread hostility by the psychiatric profession on its first publication, where the prevailing view was to treat psychosis as a medical problem to be solved. Yet it has done a great deal to draw attention to the complex and contested nature of psychosis. Above all, Laing and Esterson thought that if you understood the patient's world their apparent madness would become socially intelligible.

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Class number	Copy number	Status	Barcode
Book	Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust Knowledge Services Shelves	XX(13688.2) (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available	O_NOCOPY_356
Book	South London and Maudsley Trust Library Shelves	WM 203 LAI (Browse shelf(Opens below))	2	Available	024597
Book	St Charles Library Hub (Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust) Librarians Office			Available	CNWL00323

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In the late 1950s the psychiatrist R.D.Laing and psychoanalyst Aaron Esterson spent five years interviewing eleven families of female patients diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'. Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family. But it was the conclusions they drew from their research that caused such controversy: they suggest that some forms of mental disorder are only comprehensible within their social and family contexts; their symptoms the manifestations of people struggling to live in untenable situations.

Sanity, Madness and the Family was met with widespread hostility by the psychiatric profession on its first publication, where the prevailing view was to treat psychosis as a medical problem to be solved. Yet it has done a great deal to draw attention to the complex and contested nature of psychosis. Above all, Laing and Esterson thought that if you understood the patient's world their apparent madness would become socially intelligible.

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