Unthinkable? Rehabilitating RD Laing | Editorial
He's been unfashionable for decades, but in an era of big-pharma and proliferating diagnoses, is it time to reassess?The trouble with great men or women who lead the kind of lives described as...
View ArticleLaing's legacy
I was thrilled to see your editorial on RD Laing (Unthinkable?, 27 August), because my PhD (Descandalizing Laing: RD Laing as a Social Theorist) was concerned with this very subject. The thesis is...
View ArticleResponse: RD Laing's ideas on psychiatry are neither irrelevant nor...
His emphasis on patient care and choice has much to teach us about mental illnessYour leader column states that psychiatrist RD Laing has been "unfashionable for decades" and asks if it is time to...
View ArticleThe residents of Kingsley Hall – in pictures
In 1965, the radical psychiatrist opened a centre in London that aimed to revolutionise the treatment of mental illness. Kingsley Hall soon became notorious for drugs, wild parties, therapy and...
View ArticleKingsley Hall: RD Laing's experiment in anti-psychiatry
In 1965, the psychiatrist opened a residential treatment centre that aimed to revolutionise the treatment of mental illness. Five decades on, those who lived and spent time there look back on an era of...
View ArticleTurner prize 2012 exhibition review: is this the best one yet?
Immerse yourself in Spartacus Chetwynd's daft performances, Paul Noble's filthy drawings, Elizabeth Price's terrifying video and Luke Fowler's film about schizophreniaOpening on Tuesday at Tate...
View ArticleTurner prize 2012: Adrian Searle looks at the shortlist - video
Guardian art critic Adrian Searle finds madness and mayhem at Tate Britain, home of the 2012 Turner prize exhibition. This year's shortlist is as varied as they come, with the scatological drawings of...
View ArticleTurner prize 2012 – review
Tate Britain, LondonThe art shortlisted for the 2012 Turner prize is vivid, intelligent and original, with one dismal exception. And just for once the same can be said of the exhibition itself. For...
View ArticleTurner prize 2012: Elizabeth Price is a worthy winner in a vintage year
In a strong field, the artist's video dealing with a terrible 1979 fire in Manchester stood out as a painful, complex and honest workThis has been a good year for the Turner prize. All the artists...
View ArticleThe rebellious psychiatrists who helped me see beyond the myths and stigma of...
A work by RD Laing and Aaron Esterson answered my childhood questions about the nature of madness"Do you feel you have to agree with what most of the people round you believe?" "Well, if I don't I...
View ArticleSally Vincent obituary
Journalist and incisive interviewer who could coax and charm even the most reluctant of subjectsIt is hard to pinpoint quite what made Sally Vincent such a great interviewer. Nevertheless, even the...
View ArticleShrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry by Jeffrey Lieberman – review
This history of (American) psychiatry by a high-ranking insider is ultimately too partial and limited in scopeJourneying through the history of psychiatry with Jeffrey A Lieberman is not unlike being...
View ArticleDavid Tennant to play 'acid-Marxist' psychiatrist RD Laing in biopic
Controversial doctor advocated the use of LSD and encouraged patients at his east London residential centre to embrace their so-called madnessDavid Tennant is to play RD Laing, known as the ‘acid...
View ArticleThe Divided Laing review – study of the psychiatrist's inner streetfighter
Arcola, LondonPatrick Marmion’s ambitious play about the commune created by RD Laing in the 1960s leaves the audience deeply dividedIt was possible to have double vision while watching Patrick...
View ArticleWhip his shadow cabinet? There's nothing Corbyn would like more
War in Syria is becoming overshadowed by the conflict within the Labour party, but it’s amazing what a little re-education can do“We’re jammin’… And I hope you like jammin’, too.” As Bob Marley was...
View ArticleMad to Be Normal review – Tennant returns as a very different doctor
David Tennant gives a brilliant performance as RD Laing, the radical psychiatrist who rewrote the rules on mental health treatmentDavid Tennant is on pugnacious, mercurial and beady-eyed form in this...
View ArticleMad to Be Normal review – hippy psychiatry
David Tennant and Elisabeth Moss make an interesting team in this tale about RD Laing’s radical LSD experiments in the 1960sDavid Tennant and Elisabeth Moss have great chemistry as charismatic hippy...
View ArticleZbigniew Kotowicz obituary
My friend Zbigniew Kotowicz, who has died of cancer aged 67, was a rare, proud, sometimes solitary man with a gift for friendship. He wrote four acclaimed books: on the Portuguese writer Fernando...
View ArticleTop 10 books about psychiatry
Spanning unusual cruelty and extraordinary kindness, authors from Pat Barker to Janet Frame explore an unsettling branch of medicineThroughout human history, few people have been more consistently...
View ArticleOn the Road to Bridget Jones: five books that define each generation
Blake Morrison on boomers, Chris Power on Gen X, Megan Nolan on millennials and Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé on Gen Z … which books shaped your generation?Plus: Steven Poole defines the terms for our...
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