Product Description

Set in a European context, but written in the style of a Scottish radicalist, the author recounts his own upbringing as well as his personal and professional insights, questioning the role of the psychiatrist in today's society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #942175 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Important but flawed read
An interesting, if disjointed autobiographical account of an important figure in British psychiatry.
A short book which can be read in a few hours, with twenty page chapter accounts of the author's division of his life; 'home', 'college' etc. Jumps, jarringly at times, between the authors search for a meaningful explanation of his upbringing's effects on his life, career and outlook, and how this transposes onto, and contrasts with psychiatry in general.
Most interesting when he talks of his views on the field, when he can be provocative and thoughtful. However, the book needs to be contextualised, and feels dated; the field has evolved, not always in directions you feel Laing would have approved of. It is the actual progress of psychiatry over the past twenty years that most undermines his arguments, but the concept of critical self-appraisal is perhaps the most important idea to take from it.