Laing’s reading of Jung in Madness and Wisdom: Toward an Existential Psychiatry

Danilo Serra

doi:10.5281/zenodo.8140840

Danilo Serra International Association of Palliative Marketing

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8140840

Keywords: Psychosis, Phenomenology, Existential Psychiatry

Abstract

The aim of my contribution is to focus on some decisive aspects of the so-called “existential psychiatry” of Ronald D. Laing (1927-1989). I will begin my paper by pointing out how Jungian theory played, in a broad sense, a particularly important role in the formation and development of Laing’s thought. In order to achieve this, I will refer in particular to Chapter 4 of Intervista sul folle e il saggio —an interview with Laing by Vincenzo Caretti, originally published in Italian in 1979 by Laterza— whose English version (Dialogues on Madness and Wisdom: In Conversation with R.D. Laing) was first published in early 2022 in a series edited by the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA). Subsequently, I will consider some distinctive elements of Laingian research.

Author Biography

Danilo Serra, International Association of Palliative Marketing

Danilo Serra is co–founder and vice–president of the International Association of Palliative Marketing based in Lugano, Switzerland. PhD in Transcultural studies in humanities from the Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy. He carries out research in the areas of Heideggerian philosophy, poetic phenomenology and existential psychotherapy. He is a member of the American Daseinsanalytic Institute (ADI), where he develops activities and research related to the so–called Daseinsanalysis. At the same time, he carries out academic activities at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Enna Kore as “Subject Expert” for the chairs of History of Architecture and Architectural and Urban Composition.

References

Burston, Daniel (1996). The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R.D. Laing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Caretti, Vincenzo (2022). Dialogues on Madness and Wisdom: In Conversation with R.D. Laing, edited by M. Groth and D. Serra, translated by D. Serra. London: The Society for Existential Analysis (SEA).

Groth, Miles (2001). “Laing’s Presence”. Janus Head 4, no. 1: pp. 170-86.

Heidegger, Martin (1962). Being and Time, translated by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Laing, Ronald David (1960). The Divided Self. An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Laing, Ronald David & ESTERSON, Aaron (1964). Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Tavistock.

Laing, Ronald David (1967). The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Laing, Ronald David (1968). “The Obvious”. In The Dialectics of Liberation, edited by D. Cooper. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 13-33.

Laing, Ronald David (1976). The Facts of Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Laing, Ronald David (1985). Wisdom, Madness and Folly – The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-1957. London: Macmillan.

Jung, Carl Gustav (1958). “Schizophrenia”. In The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease (1960), Collected Works, Vol. 3. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jung, Carl Gustav (1965). Memories, Dreams, Reflections [MDR], edited by A. Jaffé. New York: Vintage.

Jung, Carl Gustav (1967). Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works, Vol. 5. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Schulman, Martin A. (2015). “R.D. Laing: Premature Postmodern Psychoanalyst”. In The legacy of R. D. Laing: An Appraisal of His Contemporary Relevance, edited by M.G. Thompson. New York: Routledge, pp. 80-98.

Laing’s reading of Jung in Madness and Wisdom: Toward an Existential Psychiatry

Abstract

Author Biography

References

Journal indexed in