Inhoudsopgave
Who was Ronald Laing?
Ronald David Laing was born in the Govanhill area in the south of Glasgow in 1927. He went to Hutcheson’s Grammar School and Glasgow University to study medicine and became interested in mental health issues during his National Service in an Army psychiatric unit.
What problems did Laurent Laing have?
Laing was troubled by his own personal problems, suffering from both episodic alcoholism and clinical depression, according to his self-diagnosis in a BBC Radio interview with Anthony Clare in 1983, although he reportedly was free of both in the years before his death.
How old was Sir David Laing when he was born?
Early years. Laing was born in the Govanhill district of Glasgow on 7 October 1927, the only child of civil engineer David Park MacNair Laing and Amelia Glen Laing (née Kirkwood). Laing described his parents – his mother especially – as being somewhat anti-social, and demanding the maximum achievement from him.
Where did Laing visit Jensen on his ship?
Laing often visited Jensen on board his ship Shanti Devi, which was his home in Stockholm. In 1967 Laing appeared on the BBC programme Your Witness, chaired by Ludovic Kennedy on which, alongside Jonathan Aitken and G.P. Ian Dunbar, he argued for the legalisation of cannabis, in the first live television debate on the subject.
What is Laing’s view of mental illness?
Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, mental illness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey.
What does Laing mean by ontologically secure person?
In The Divided Self (1960), Laing contrasted the experience of the “ontologically secure” person with that of a person who “cannot take the realness, aliveness, autonomy and identity of himself and others for granted” and who consequently contrives strategies to avoid “losing his self”.