The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise - R. D. Laing

In The Politics of Experience and the visionary Bird of Paradise , R.D. Laing shows how the straitjacket of conformity imposed on us all leads to intense feelings of alienation and a tragic waste of human potential. He throws into question the notion of normality, examines schizophrenia and psychotherapy, transcendence and "us and them" thinking, and illustrates his ideas with a remarkable case history of a ten-day psychosis. "We are bemused and crazed creatures," Laing suggests. This outline of "a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man" represents a major attempt to understand our deepest dilemmas and sketch in solutions. Everyone in contemporary psychiatry owes something to R.D. Laing. (Anthony Clare, the Guardian.)