R. D. Laing is closely associated with anti-psychiatry, yet he repeatedly objected to being described as its founder or representative. Understanding that tension requires separating a public label, the arguments in his books, his relationships with other critics of psychiatry and his later account of what he had intended. Rejecting the label does not make his criticism of psychiatry disappear.
A disputed description
In Mad to Be Normal, Bob Mullan’s collection of conversations with Laing, the association is itself a subject of disagreement. Mullan notes how frequently Laing and David Cooper were presented together. Laing objects to having Cooper’s views attributed to him and to the story of a unified movement with the two men as its joint leaders. [1]
In the later conversations, Laing complains about publishers
encouraging my alleged association with anti-psychiatry.
R. D. Laing, in conversation with Bob Mullan — Mad to Be Normal, p. 356 (excerpt) [1]
The book is a retrospective source. Mullan explains that he began his biographical project in 1988 and later edited recorded conversations for publication in 1995. It gives access to Laing’s account of his reputation; it does not settle every historical question about how that reputation developed. [1]
A useful distinction is between being grouped with a tendency and endorsing a shared programme. Laing’s objections are evidence that he did not accept the identification. They are not evidence that readers invented every connection between his writing and the wider criticism of psychiatric authority.
David Cooper: collaboration and disagreement
Cooper’s Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry was originally published in 1967. The publisher’s contents identify Villa 21 as an experiment in anti-psychiatry. This is a specific book and project, rather than a title Laing gave to his own work. [2]
His retrospective account also separates his position from Cooper’s:
Neither Esterson nor I were against the family.
R. D. Laing, in conversation with Bob Mullan — Mad to Be Normal, p. 280 [1]
Laing and Cooper did collaborate on Reason and Violence, their account of Sartre. In the Mullan conversations, Laing recalls their common interests in Sartre and French intellectual life while emphasising differences between Cooper’s project at Villa 21 and his own conception of Kingsley Hall. The collaboration is well documented; the precise character of their disagreements should remain attributed to Laing’s later testimony. [1] [3]
The distinction also matters for writing about the family. Laing tells Mullan that neither he nor Aaron Esterson thought in terms of advocating the family’s destruction. His account of their disagreement over Cooper’s The Death of the Family is a recollection of a dispute, not a reason to treat all three writers as interchangeable. [1]
What Laing actually criticised
In The Politics of Experience, Laing questions the way a diagnosis can be treated as an established explanation before the person’s circumstances have been investigated. He announces that he is using schizophrenia to refer to a label applied under particular social conditions. That is a substantial challenge to a medical framing, and an account of his position should acknowledge its strength. [4]
He also examines the unequal positions of clinician and patient. In his discussion of Kraepelin’s clinical demonstration, the patient’s behaviour appears strange when removed from the interaction. Restoring the examiner’s actions changes what the observer can understand. The methodological point is that a clinical encounter has more than one participant, even when only one is being diagnosed. [4]
Laing does not simply replace this asymmetry with an unrestricted rule that patients must always be right. When he recalls Sullivan’s deliberately provocative reversal of the usual hierarchy, he calls it an oversimplification. His use of it is intended to unsettle the automatic assumption that the clinician’s perspective supplies the unquestionable standard. [4]
Distress and its explanation are different questions
In the later conversations, Laing explicitly rejects the suggestion that he denied mental distress, confusion or suffering. He says he wanted to make these experiences more socially intelligible and to help people experiencing them. This clarification concerns what he was disputing: the explanation and response, rather than whether people could suffer terribly. [1]
That distinction helps, but it cannot resolve the whole controversy. A writer can acknowledge suffering while making an inadequate claim about its origins. Equally, showing that an experience has personal meaning does not establish that biological processes are irrelevant. Questions about suffering, diagnosis, cause, treatment and professional power need separate answers.
Laing makes a related qualification in The Politics of the Family. At the end of his discussion of the internalised family, he distinguishes observations about certain family structures from an assertion that such families cause schizophrenia. That explicit qualification should be preserved alongside the more sweeping rhetoric found elsewhere in his work. [5]
Breakdown, liberation and the later defence
Laing’s writing on transformative crisis also contributed to the disputed interpretation of his work. The journey passages in The Politics of Experience propose possibilities of renewal while describing fear and possible failure. Both elements belong to the published argument. [4]
Later, he tells Mullan that he regretted how the voyage idea had been marketed and detached from the ordinary misery of people’s lives. He rejects the suggestion that he recommended or glorified their suffering. That is an important statement of intention, but intentions and effects on readers are different kinds of evidence. The later defence should be read beside the earlier text. [1]
Reading the controversy today
Present-day clinical information should not be inferred from a debate conducted in the 1960s. The NHS describes schizophrenia’s causes as uncertain and involving interacting physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors. Its information on psychosis describes medication, talking therapies and social support as parts of care. [6] [7]
The historical question is best approached through specific claims: what Laing said about diagnosis, what he proposed in practice, where he differed from colleagues and what evidence supports each position. The single label anti-psychiatry cannot do all that work. His continuing challenge concerns how institutions understand and respond to people; assessing that challenge does not require accepting all his explanations.
Related pages examine Kingsley Hall, metanoia, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
References and source notes
- Mullan, Bob (1995). Mad to Be Normal: Conversations with R. D. Laing. Free Association Books. Edited retrospective conversations; references use the printed page numbers.Cited: “Contemporaries”, pp. 194–195; “Reputation”, p. 356; p. 356; preface, pp. vii–ix; publication details; p. 280; “Contemporaries”, pp. 194–195; “Sanity, Madness and the Family”, p. 280; “Contemporaries”, pp. 201–202; “Reputation”, pp. 357–358.
- Routledge. Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry, by David Cooper. Publisher catalogue for the facsimile reissue of the 1967 book. Description and contents consulted 14 October 2026; cited here for bibliographic information, not as a review of the complete text.Cited: publisher description, original publication date and contents. Online source
- Laing, R. D., and Cooper, D. G. (1964; second edition 1971). Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre’s Philosophy 1950–1960. References use the Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 edition. The introduction is jointly authored; Cooper wrote chapters 1–2 and Laing chapter 3.Cited: preface and introduction. Online source
- Laing, R. D. (1967). The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. Penguin Books, 1970 reprint.Cited: chapter 5, pp. 86–88; chapter 5, pp. 88–90; chapter 5, p. 91; chapter 5, pp. 103–107.
- Laing, R. D. (1971). The Politics of the Family and Other Essays. References use the Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 edition; first publication recorded as 1969.Cited: “The Family and the ‘Family’”, p. 18.
- NHS. Schizophrenia: Causes. Consulted 14 October 2026.Cited: “Causes”. Online source
- NHS. Psychosis: Treatment. Consulted 14 October 2026.Cited: “Treatment”. Online source