Ronald David Laing


(R. D. Laing)

1927 - 1989

Psychiatrist. Laing was born in Glasgow. He studied and worked in the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Glasgow. Laing came to prominence through his revolutionary publication The Divided Self (1960). He argued that mental illness was often a reaction to an individual's inability to cope with the stresses of society and the people around them. He developed an alternative approach to the treatment of schizophrenia, based on understanding and discussion, and shunned the standard treatments of hospitalisation and electroshock.

Laing died in St. Tropez, France.


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