View source for Anarchy 70/Libertarian Psychiatry: an introduction to existential analysis

{{header
 | title      = [[../|ANARCHY 70 (Vol 6 No 12) DECEMBER 1966]]<br>Libertarian Psychiatry: an introduction to existential analysis
 | author     = Peter Ford
 | section    =
 | previous   = [[../|Contents of No. 70]]
 | next       = [[../Anarchist anthologies|Anarchist anthologies]]
 | notes      = 
}}


<div style="max-width:500px; margin:auto;">{{p|353}}
<div style="text-align:justify;"><font size="5">'''Libertarian Psychiatry:'''<br>'''an introduction to'''<br>'''existential analysis'''</font>

<font size="4">'''[[Author:Peter Ford|PETER FORD]]'''</font>


{{p|s1}}{{sc|This art&shy;icle aims to draw at&shy;ten&shy;tion}} to the work of a group of British psy&shy;chi&shy;atrists of whom the best known are {{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}} and {{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}. They have achieved some no&shy;tori&shy;ety in this country because of the ex&shy;tent of their di&shy;ver&shy;gence, both in theory and prac&shy;tice, from cur&shy;rent psy&shy;chi&shy;atric ortho&shy;doxy{{dash}}and par&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;larly as a con&shy;sequence of their refer&shy;ences to the pre&shy;val&shy;ent {{qq|treat&shy;ment}} of the men&shy;tally ill as {{qq|viol&shy;ence}}. As a teacher, I am not qual&shy;ified to at&shy;tempt more than an out&shy;line of their ideas as under&shy;stood by me, after read&shy;ing their books and art&shy;icles and some related studies. But the im&shy;plica&shy;tions of the work of the British ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial&shy;ist group ex&shy;tend beyond the limits of psy&shy;chi&shy;atry{{dash}}and the very gener&shy;ality of their as&shy;ser&shy;tions in&shy;vites a re&shy;sponse from the layman. Writing of the pro&shy;cess which in their view results in the ul&shy;ti&shy;mate in&shy;val&shy;id&shy;a&shy;tion of persons through the label&shy;ling of them as {{qq|mad}}, Laing asks: {{qq|&hellip; what func&shy;tion does this pro&shy;ced&shy;ure serve for the civic order? These ques&shy;tions are only begin&shy;ning to be asked, much less answered. &hellip; So&shy;cially, this work must now move to further under&shy;stand&shy;ing &hellip; of the mean&shy;ing of all this within the larger con&shy;text of the civic order of so&shy;ciety{{dash}}that is, of the ''polit&shy;ical'' order, of the ways persons exer&shy;cise control and power over one an&shy;other.}} (''{{w|New Left Review|New_Left_Review}}'', No. 28.) Anarch&shy;ism is about just this, and any theory, from what&shy;ever dis&shy;cipline, which leads to a ques&shy;tion&shy;ing of the polit&shy;ical order of so&shy;ciety should have rel&shy;ev&shy;ance for us{{dash}}and we should know some&shy;thing about it.

{{tab}}Dr. Laing has written that his main intel&shy;lec&shy;tual in&shy;debt&shy;ed&shy;ness is to {{qq|the {{w|ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial|Existentialism}} tradi&shy;tion}}{{dash|{{w|Kierke&shy;gaard|Søren_Kierkegaard}}, {{w|Jaspers|Karl_Jaspers}}, {{w|Heideg&shy;ger|Martin_Heidegger}}, {{w|Bins&shy;wanger|Ludwig_Binswanger}}, {{w|Tillich|Paul_Tillich}} and {{w|Sartre|Jean-Paul_Sartre}}}}and of these there is no doubt that Sartre{{s}} in&shy;flu&shy;ence has been the great&shy;est. The British ana&shy;lysts have clearly worked out their own the&shy;or&shy;et&shy;ical basis and in many in&shy;stan&shy;ces have de&shy;veloped Sartre{{s}} ideas rather than merely adopted them as they stand. I am not cer&shy;tain, for ex&shy;ample how com&shy;pletely Laing and Cooper share Sartre{{s}} total re&shy;jec&shy;tion of the con&shy;cept of {{qq|the un&shy;con&shy;scious}}. However, their book {{l|''Reason and Viol&shy;ence'': ''A Decade of Sartre{{s}} Philo&shy;sophy'' 1950-1960|http://laingsociety.org/biblio/randv.htm}} (Tavistock, 1964) opens with a com&shy;pli&shy;ment&shy;ary pre&shy;fat&shy;ory note from the French philo&shy;sopher{{dash|I believe this is an un&shy;usual honour for a book about his ideas}}and this ''im&shy;prim&shy;atur'' sug&shy;gests that what&shy;ever their diver&shy;gen&shy;cies, they can&shy;not be basic.

{{tab}}In [[Anarchy 44|{{sc|anarchy}} 44]] J.-P. Sartre is re&shy;ferred to as {{qq|one of the fore&shy;most anarch&shy;ist moral&shy;ists}} ([[Author:Ian Vine|Ian Vine]]: {{qq|[[Anarchy 44/The morality of anarchism|The Moral&shy;ity of Anarch&shy;ism]]}}). This de&shy;scrip&shy;tion com&shy;pares in&shy;triguingly with an&shy;other, made by the so&shy;cial&shy;ist {{w|Alasdair<!-- 'Alisdair' in original --> MacIntyre|Alasdair_MacIntyre}}, re&shy;view&shy;ing Sartre{{s}} book ''{{w|The Prob&shy;lem of Method|Search_for_a_Method}}'' in ''{{w|Peace News|Peace_News}}''. He re&shy;fers to Sartre as a newly found {{qq|spokes&shy;man of genius}} for {{qq|ersatz {{w|bolshev&shy;iks|Bolsheviks}}}} and {{qq|im&shy;it&shy;a&shy;tion anarch&shy;ists}}. Not know&shy;ing MacIntyre{{s}} idea of the genu&shy;ine art&shy;icle, this does not ex&shy;actly rule the French&shy;man out and I believe his work may well just&shy;ify a place on an anarch&shy;ist{{s}} book list. Writing with par&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;lar refer&shy;ence to Sartre{{s}} recent work, MacIntyre notes that Sartre can offer no bonds, other than re&shy;cip&shy;roc&shy;ally threat&shy;ened viol&shy;ence and terror, of suf&shy;fi&shy;cient strength to main&shy;tain the co&shy;he&shy;sion of human groups in a world of {{qq|im&shy;pos&shy;sibly indi&shy;vidual&shy;ist indi&shy;viduals}}. Per&shy;haps a spokes&shy;man for {{w|Stirner&shy;ites|Philosophy_of_Max_Stirner}}? Never&shy;the&shy;less, the poten&shy;ti&shy;alit&shy;ies of Sartre{{s}} philo&shy;sophy as a basis for anarch&shy;ism are in&shy;cid&shy;ental to my pur&shy;pose here.

{{tab}}The first of four epis&shy;odes of this essay are in&shy;tended to create a set&shy;ting against which ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial ana&shy;lysis may be viewed.


{{p|s2}}'''EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM'''


{{tab}}{{qq|Man can&shy;not be some&shy;times slave and some&shy;times free; he is wholly and forever free, or he is not free at all.}}

<div style="text-align:right;">Sartre: ''{{w|Being and No&shy;thing&shy;ness|Being_and_Nothingness}}''</div>


{{tab}}The con&shy;cept of free&shy;dom at the core of ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial&shy;ism is very dif&shy;fer&shy;ent from what I take to be the com&shy;mon under&shy;stand&shy;ing of the term. In gen&shy;eral usage, a man is free in as much as he can achieve his chosen ends with a min&shy;imum of effort. Simil&shy;arly, a man{{s}} free&shy;dom is re&shy;duced as the ob&shy;stacles between his de&shy;sires and chosen ends are in&shy;creased. Free&shy;dom is re&shy;garded as a measur&shy;able quant&shy;ity; one may have a lot or a little of it, and it can be taken away{{dash}}or even {{qq|given}}. The anarch&shy;ist{{s}} hypo&shy;thet&shy;ical destin&shy;a&shy;tion, the {{qq|free}} so&shy;ciety, may often be thought of in the sense of an har&shy;mo&shy;ni&shy;ous envir&shy;on&shy;ment in which all re&shy;mov&shy;able ob&shy;stacles between man{{s}} de&shy;sires and their ful&shy;fil&shy;ment have been elim&shy;in&shy;ated. But for Sartre, man is totally free by reason of his very being as man, and ob&shy;stacles between de&shy;sires and chosen ends are of no rel&shy;ev&shy;ance. To use a favoured ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial&shy;ist phrase, man is free by onto&shy;lo&shy;gical neces&shy;sity. But his free&shy;dom rests, within this con&shy;cept, in his total re&shy;spons&shy;ibil&shy;ity in the face of un&shy;deter&shy;mined choice and in his recog&shy;ni&shy;tion of the in&shy;escap&shy;able ob&shy;lig&shy;a&shy;tion to choose. An intuit&shy;ive aware&shy;ness of this re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity{{dash|per&shy;haps pro&shy;voked by some sort of {{qq|ex&shy;treme situ&shy;a&shy;tion}}}}gives rise to what Sartre calls {{qq|the anguish of free&shy;dom}}. It is our fate to be free. {{qq|&hellip; One must always de&shy;cide for one&shy;self and efforts to shift the burden of re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity upon others are neces&shy;sar&shy;ily self-<wbr>de&shy;feat&shy;ing. Not to choose is also to choose, for even if we de&shy;liver our power of de&shy;ci&shy;sion to others, we are still re&shy;spons&shy;ible for having done so. It is always the indi&shy;vidual who de&shy;cides that others will choose for him.}}<ref>Robert G. Olson, ''An Intro&shy;duc&shy;tion to Ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial&shy;ism'', New York, Dover Publi&shy;ca&shy;tions, 1962, p. 52.</ref> In so far as we are free in our choices, we {{qq|create}} the ob&shy;stacles that lie between our pro&shy;ject and its ful&shy;fil&shy;ment: {{qq|an in&shy;sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;ant public of&shy;fi&shy;cial in {{w|Mont-de-Marsan|Mont-de-Marsan}} without means may not have the op&shy;por&shy;tun&shy;ity to go to {{w|New York|New_York}} if that be his ambi&shy;tion. But the ob&shy;stacles which stand in his way would not exist as ob&shy;stacles were it not for his free choice and values: in this case, his desire to go {{p|355}}to New York.}}<ref>ibid., p. 105 (a refer&shy;ence to an epis&shy;ode in ''Being and No&shy;thing&shy;ness'', p. 495).</ref> Even though human free&shy;dom, in his view, is total, Sartre ad&shy;mits of a sense in which it may be spoken of in terms of degree. A man may be said to become {{qq|more free}} as his con&shy;scious&shy;ness of total free&shy;dom and re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity in&shy;creases; and cer&shy;tain situ&shy;a&shy;tions in life can crystal&shy;lize this aware&shy;ness. In an ap&shy;par&shy;ently cryptic para&shy;graph in ''Being and No&shy;thing&shy;ness'' Sartre de&shy;scribes the {{w|German Oc&shy;cupa&shy;tion of France|German_military_administration_in_occupied_France_during_World_War_II}} during the last {{w|war|World_War_II}} as such a situ&shy;a&shy;tion. {{qq|&hellip; the choice that each of us made of his life and his being was an au&shy;then&shy;tic choice because it was made face to face with death, because it could always have been ex&shy;pressed in these terms: {{q|Rather death than &hellip;}}.}}<ref>{{w|J.-P. Sartre|Jean-Paul_Sartre}}, ''Situations III'', Paris, Gallimard, 1949 (quoted by {{popup|Olson|Robert G. Olson. An Introduction to Existentialism.}}, p. 121).</ref> But the issue is not just one of an in&shy;creased sense of re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity for our day-<wbr>to-<wbr>day options{{dash}}for in&shy;stance in de&shy;cid&shy;ing upon a change in oc&shy;cu&shy;pa&shy;tion, or merely which book to read next; most sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;antly ''we choose our&shy;selves'', and our day-<wbr>to-<wbr>day de&shy;ci&shy;sions neces&shy;sarily re&shy;flect this primary choice we have made. We are what we have chosen to be. All our sub&shy;sequent modes of action are re&shy;lated to this original {{qq|project-<wbr>of-<wbr>being}}, {{qq|Freely chosen at the moment one wrenches one&shy;self away from the in-<wbr>itself to create one{{s}} own world}}<ref>{{popup|Olson|Robert G. Olson}}, {{popup|op. cit.|opere citato: cited above}}, p. 119.</ref> (the in-<wbr>itself: the world of things). This event I take to be com&shy;par&shy;able with what R. D. Laing calls {{qq|ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial birth}} which, he sug&shy;gests, is as essen&shy;tial for a fully human ex&shy;ist&shy;ence as the bio&shy;lo&shy;gical birth which it nor&shy;mally follows.{{ref|aster|*}} It is only in rela&shy;tion to this funda&shy;mental choice, the indi&shy;vidual{{s}} original {{qq|pro&shy;ject-<wbr>of-<wbr>being}} that his later beha&shy;viour can be fully under&shy;stood. The plaus&shy;ibil&shy;ity of this basic idea is not in&shy;creased by Sartre{{s}} denial of the divi&shy;sion of the self into con&shy;scious and un&shy;con&shy;scious modes; the idea of a tooth&shy;less infant con&shy;sciously de&shy;termin&shy;ing its future life&shy;style and pur&shy;pose is at first thought ab&shy;surd. But whilst ex&shy;pli&shy;citly deny&shy;ing valid&shy;ity to the {{qq|un&shy;con&shy;scious}} Sartre does separ&shy;ate con&shy;scious&shy;ness into {{qq|re&shy;flect&shy;ive}} and {{qq|non-<wbr>re&shy;flect&shy;ive}} levels, and it is at the non-<wbr>re&shy;flect&shy;ive level that this funda&shy;mental choice is made. He stresses that this original choice is in no way de&shy;liber&shy;ate: {{qq|This is not because it would be less con&shy;scious or less ex&shy;plicit than a de&shy;liber&shy;a&shy;tion but, on the con&shy;trary, because it is the found&shy;a&shy;tion of all de&shy;liber&shy;a&shy;tion and because &hellip; a de&shy;liber&shy;a&shy;tion re&shy;quires an inter&shy;pret&shy;a&shy;tion in terms of an original choice.}}<ref>{{w|J.-P. Sartre|Jean-Paul Sartre}}, {{w|''Being and No&shy;thing&shy;ness''|Being_and_Nothingness}}, London, Methuen, 1956, pp. 461-2.</ref> The con&shy;cepts of {{qq|au&shy;then&shy;ti&shy;city}} and its ap&shy;proxim&shy;ate op&shy;po&shy;site {{qq|bad-<wbr>faith}} are in a sense under&shy;stand&shy;able as judge&shy;ments (al&shy;though Sartre claims only to use these terms de&shy;script&shy;ively) upon the degree of con&shy;cord&shy;ance between the choices of our re&shy;flect&shy;ive con&shy;scious&shy;ness and our original pro&shy;ject-<wbr>of-<wbr>being. In a pas&shy;sage which bears di&shy;rectly upon ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial ana&shy;lysis he writes that a man {{qq|can make vol&shy;un&shy;tary de&shy;ci&shy;sions which are op&shy;posed to the funda&shy;mental ends which he has chosen. These de&shy;ci&shy;sions can be only vol&shy;un&shy;tary{{dash}}that is, re&shy;flect&shy;ive. &hellip; Thus, for ex&shy;ample, I can de&shy;cide to cure myself of {{w|stutter&shy;ing|Stuttering}}. I can even {{p|256}}suc&shy;ceed in it. &hellip; In fact I can ob&shy;tain a result by using merely tech&shy;nical methods. &hellip; But these re&shy;sults will only dis&shy;place the in&shy;firm&shy;ity from which I suf&shy;fer; an&shy;other will arise in its place and will in its own way ex&shy;press the total end which I pur&shy;sue. &hellip; It is the same with these cures as it is with the cure of {{w|hys&shy;teria|Hysteria}} by {{w|elec&shy;tric shock treat&shy;ment|Electroconvulsive_therapy}}. We know that this ther&shy;apy can effect the dis&shy;ap&shy;pear&shy;ance of an hys&shy;terical con&shy;trac&shy;tion of the leg, but as one will see some time later the con&shy;trac&shy;tion will ap&shy;pear in the arm. This is because the hys&shy;teria can be cured only as a total&shy;ity, for it is a total pro&shy;ject of the for-<wbr>itself}}<ref>ibid., pp. 471-75 (quoted by {{popup|Olson|Robert G. Olson}}, p. 121).</ref> (the for-<wbr>itself: the world of con&shy;scious&shy;ness and in&shy;ten&shy;tion).

{{tab}}Sartre argues against the {{w|Freud&shy;ian|Sigmund_Freud}} three-<wbr>way split of the per&shy;sonal&shy;ity into {{w|id, ego and super-ego|Id,_ego_and_super-ego}} and the {{w|Psycho-ana&shy;lytic|Psychoanalysis}} dictum of con&shy;scious beha&shy;viour as de&shy;term&shy;ined by drives, in&shy;stincts and de&shy;sires al&shy;legedly eman&shy;at&shy;ing from the id. As Sartre{{s}} argu&shy;ments hinge upon his stated belief in man{{s}} on&shy;to&shy;lo&shy;gical free&shy;dom, Freud{{s}} pro&shy;ject of {{qq|de&shy;term&shy;ina&shy;tion by the un&shy;con&shy;scious}} is met with similar ob&shy;jec&shy;tions to those made against other de&shy;term&shy;in&shy;ist theories and I need not at&shy;tempt to sum&shy;mar&shy;ise them here.<ref>The first part of {{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}{{s}} ''The Self and Others'' is a lucid argu&shy;ment against the basic con&shy;cepts of tradi&shy;tional psycho-<wbr>ana&shy;lysis.</ref> The only valid form of ther&shy;apy is one aimed at dis&shy;cover&shy;ing an indi&shy;vidual{{s}} funda&shy;mental pro&shy;ject-<wbr>of-<wbr>being{{dash}}and this is the pur&shy;pose of ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tial ana&shy;lysis (or psycho-<wbr>ana&shy;lysis; the pre&shy;fix seems to be op&shy;tional). {{qq|The prin&shy;ciple of this psycho-<wbr>ana&shy;lysis is that man is a total&shy;ity and not a col&shy;lec&shy;tion; he there&shy;fore ex&shy;presses him&shy;self in his total&shy;ity in the most in&shy;sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;ant and the most super&shy;fi&shy;cial as&shy;pects of his con&shy;duct}} (''Being and No&shy;thing&shy;ness''). Through the use of a tech&shy;nique or method based on such as&shy;sump&shy;tions the ini&shy;tially {{qq|crazy}} actions of the in&shy;sane may be made com&shy;pre&shy;hens&shy;ible{{dash}}and may even ap&shy;pear {{qq|reason&shy;able}} if a picture of the world in which the pa&shy;tient lives can be as&shy;sembled.

{{tab}}R. D. Laing has written that {{qq|only by the most out&shy;rage&shy;ous viol&shy;a&shy;tion of our&shy;selves have we achieved our cap&shy;ac&shy;ity to live in relat&shy;ive ad&shy;just&shy;ment to a civil&shy;isa&shy;tion ap&shy;par&shy;ently driven to its own de&shy;struc&shy;tion}} and has de&shy;scribed the {{qq|normal}} person in the present age as {{qq|a half-<wbr>crazed creature, more or less ad&shy;justed to a mad world}}.<ref>{{qq|Mas&shy;sacre of the In&shy;no&shy;cents}}, ''{{w|Peace News|Peace_News}}'', 22nd January, 1965.</ref> What is the norm that gives the gen&shy;erally ac&shy;cepted mean&shy;ing to such relat&shy;ive de&shy;scrip&shy;tions as {{qq|mad}}, {{qq|insane}}, {{qq|mal&shy;ad&shy;justed}}? And what is the sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;ance of what is done to the people that are dis&shy;qual&shy;i&shy;fied when meas&shy;ured against this cri&shy;terion; the people that the mad offi&shy;cials label as {{qq|offi&shy;cially mad}}?


{{p|s3}}'''THE INSANE IN A MAD WORLD'''


{{tab}}{{qq|In the con&shy;text of our present mad&shy;ness that we call normal&shy;ity, san&shy;ity, free&shy;dom, all our frames of refer&shy;ence are am&shy;bigu&shy;ous and equi&shy;vocal.}}

{{r|{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}: ''The Divided Self''.}}


{{tab}}In 1965 there were 160,000 people in mental hos&shy;pitals in Britain and an estim&shy;ated 200,000 psy&shy;chotics in the com&shy;mun&shy;ity. Nearly half of all hos&shy;pital beds are oc&shy;cu&shy;pied my the men&shy;tally ill. In a tele&shy;vision pro&shy;gramme on mental health<ref>{{w|BBC}} {{qq|{{w|Panorama|Panorama_(TV_series)}}}} on {{qq|Mental Health}}, 6th June, 1966.</ref> the number of men&shy;tally ill in Britain was given as half a million. The tele&shy;vised psy&shy;chi&shy;atrist sug&shy;gested that there were four main cat&shy;egor&shy;ies of ill&shy;ness: people with mental de&shy;form&shy;ity, {{p|357}}old people with {{qq|mental equip&shy;ment in de&shy;cline}} (&hellip; per&shy;haps old people with no&shy;where else to go?{{ref|aster2|**}}), people with physiolo&shy;gic&shy;ally normal mental equip&shy;ment but with ac&shy;quired neur&shy;otic pat&shy;terns, and lastly, vic&shy;tims of {{qq|bio{{-}}chem&shy;ical ill&shy;ness}}{{dash}}in his words, {{qq|Struck down out of the blue}}. The fourth cat&shy;egory per&shy;haps re&shy;flects, more than any&shy;thing else, the cur&shy;rently fa&shy;voured styles of treat&shy;ment!

{{tab}}By far the largest group is the third{{dash}}the {{qq|neur&shy;otics and psychot&shy;ics}}. Among these {{qq|{{w|schizo&shy;phrenia|Schizophrenia}}}} is the most common dia&shy;gnosis. {{qq|In most European coun&shy;tries about one per cent of the popu&shy;la&shy;tion go to hos&shy;pital at least once in their life&shy;time with the dia&shy;gnosis schizo&shy;phrenia.}}<ref>{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}, {{qq|The Anti{{-}}Hos&shy;pital: An Ex&shy;peri&shy;ment in Psy&shy;chi&shy;atry}}, {{w|''New So&shy;ciety''|New_Society}}, 11th March, 1965.</ref> But what mean&shy;ing can be given to these stat&shy;istics and as&shy;sess&shy;ments without a stand&shy;ard of san&shy;ity or mad&shy;ness? {{qq|Defin&shy;i&shy;tions of mental health pro&shy;pounded by the ex&shy;perts usually re&shy;duce to the no&shy;tion of con&shy;form&shy;ism, to a set of more or less ar&shy;bit&shy;rar&shy;ily pos&shy;ited so&shy;cial norms. &hellip;}}<ref>{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}, {{qq|Viol&shy;ence in Psy&shy;chi&shy;atry}}, ''{{l|Views|https://lccn.loc.gov/sf83002178}}'', No. 8, Summer, 1965.</ref> The label&shy;ling of people as mad can have the so&shy;cial func&shy;tion of defin&shy;ing the area of {{qq|san&shy;ity}}{{dash}}per&shy;haps there is a par&shy;al&shy;lel with {{w|Durkheim|Émile_Durkheim}}{{s}} theory of crime and pun&shy;ish&shy;ment as {{qq|neces&shy;sary}} to re&shy;spect&shy;able so&shy;ciety to mark off the limits of per&shy;mis&shy;sible and toler&shy;ated beha&shy;viour. {{qq|So&shy;ciety needs lun&shy;at&shy;ics in order that it may regard itself as sane.}}<ref>ibid.</ref> It could also be argued that cer&shy;tain kinds of so&shy;ciety {{qq|need}} lun&shy;at&shy;ics as their man&shy;agers; a dis&shy;cus&shy;sion in {{w|''Peace News''|Peace_News}} re&shy;cently was con&shy;cerned with the un&shy;certi&shy;fi&shy;able mad&shy;ness of the {{w|Amer&shy;ican Presid&shy;ent|Lyndon_B._Johnson}} in rela&shy;tion to a {{qq|col&shy;lect&shy;ive norm of in&shy;san&shy;ity}}. A Cor&shy;re&shy;spond&shy;ent noted: {{qq|No sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;ant mem&shy;ber of a power estab&shy;lish&shy;ment can ever be {{q|cert&shy;ifi&shy;ably in&shy;sane}} since it is this same estab&shy;lish&shy;ment which de&shy;ter&shy;mines the defin&shy;i&shy;tions of {{q|san&shy;ity}} and {{q|in&shy;san&shy;ity}} and which de&shy;cides{{dash|checked only by the oc&shy;ca&shy;sional con&shy;science of an oc&shy;ca&shy;sional pro&shy;fes&shy;sional medi&shy;cal man}}when {{qq|in&shy;san&shy;ity}} becomes {{qq|{{w|cert&shy;ifi&shy;able|Involuntary_commitment}}}}.}}<ref>Part of a letter by Pierre{{-}}Joseph Brie, {{qq|In&shy;san&shy;ity and the Egg}}, {{w|''Peace News''|Peace_News}}, 1st July, 1966.</ref>

{{tab}}In offi&shy;cial stat&shy;istics there must, in any case, be a murky over&shy;lap area between what comes out as {{qq|crime}} and what as {{qq|lunacy}}{{dash}}and a lot of luck in who ends up in which in&shy;stitu&shy;tion. Per&shy;haps it is the in&shy;stitu&shy;tional bureau&shy;cracy that has most need of the labels: {{qq|Ac&shy;cord&shy;ing to the common&shy;sense defin&shy;i&shy;tion,}} writes Dr. Theodore Szasz, {{qq|mental health is the abil&shy;ity to play what&shy;ever the game of so&shy;cial living might con&shy;sist of and to play it well. Con&shy;versely, to re&shy;fuse to play, or to play badly, means that the person is men&shy;tally ill. The ques&shy;tion may now be raised as to what are the dif&shy;fer&shy;ences, if any between so&shy;cial non&shy;con&shy;form&shy;ity (or devi&shy;a&shy;tion) and mental ill&shy;ness. Leaving tech&shy;nical psy&shy;chi&shy;atric con&shy;sider&shy;a&shy;tions aside for the moment, I shall argue that the dif&shy;fer&shy;ence between these two no&shy;tions{{dash|as ex&shy;pressed for ex&shy;ample by the state&shy;ments {{q|He is wrong}} and {{q|He is men&shy;tally ill}}}}does not lie in any ob&shy;serv&shy;able ''facts'' to which they may point, but may con&shy;sist only of a dif&shy;fer&shy;ence in our ''at&shy;ti&shy;tudes'' toward our sub&shy;ject.}}<ref>{{w|T. S. Szasz|Thomas_Szasz}}, {{qq|Polit&shy;ics and Mental Health}}, {{w|''Amer&shy;ican Journal of Psy&shy;chi&shy;atry''|American_Journal_of_Psychiatry}}, No. 115 (1958) (quoted by {{w|Erving Goffman|Erving_Goffman}} in {{w|''Asylums''|Asylums_(book)}}, p. 509).</ref> What sort of be&shy;ha&shy;viour is likely to lead those with the ap&shy;propri&shy;ate at&shy;ti&shy;tudes to see signs of mental ill&shy;ness and to set going the trans&shy;fer pro&shy;cess from {{p|358}}{{qq|person to pa&shy;tient}}? {{qq|Ordin&shy;arily the patho&shy;logy which first draws at&shy;ten&shy;tion to the pa&shy;tient{{s}} con&shy;di&shy;tion is con&shy;duct that is {{q|in&shy;ap&shy;propri&shy;ate in the situ&shy;a&shy;tion}}. &hellip; Further, since in&shy;ap&shy;propri&shy;ate beha&shy;viour is typic&shy;ally beha&shy;viour that some&shy;one does not like and finds ex&shy;tremely trouble&shy;some, deci&shy;sions con&shy;cern&shy;ing it tend to be polit&shy;ical, in the sense of ex&shy;pres&shy;sing the spe&shy;cial inter&shy;ests of some par&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;lar fac&shy;tion or person. &hellip;}}<ref>{{w|Erving Goffman|Erving_Goffman}}, ''{{w|Asylums{{dash}}Essays on the So&shy;cial Situ&shy;a&shy;tion of Mental Pa&shy;tients and Other In&shy;mates|Asylums_(book)}}'', New York, Anchor Books, 1961, pp. 363-4.</ref> As an ex&shy;ample of {{qq|in&shy;ap&shy;propri&shy;ate beha&shy;viour}}, con&shy;sider the case of {{qq|The Naked Prisoner}} ({{sc|{{w|freedom|Freedom_(newspaper)}}}}, 16.10.65). Mr. Paul Pawlowski was ar&shy;rested during a demon&shy;stra&shy;tion at the {{w|Spanish Embassy|Embassy_of_Spain,_London}} in {{w|London}}. Eventu&shy;ally reach&shy;ing {{w|Brixton Prison|HM_Prison_Brixton}}, he re&shy;fused to put on the stand&shy;ard pris&shy;on&shy;er{{s|r}} uni&shy;form and was con&shy;sequently locked up, naked, in his cell. Thus he re&shy;mained for ten days. On the tenth day he was inter&shy;viewed by a so&shy;cial worker: {{qq|&hellip; You know that two doctors have seen you while you have been in Brixton &hellip; they came to the con&shy;clu&shy;sion that what you need is a little stay in a mental hos&shy;pital.}} In fact he did not have the benefit of this con&shy;fine&shy;ment. The hos&shy;pital psy&shy;chi&shy;atrist de&shy;cided that Mr. Pawlowski{{s}} opin&shy;ions were not those of the ma&shy;jor&shy;ity but {{qq|people are not put into mental hos&shy;pitals for their opin&shy;ions. They do that sort of thing in {{w|Russia|Soviet_Union}}.}}{{ref|aster3|***}} Mr. Pawlowski was for&shy;tun&shy;ate in his psy&shy;chi&shy;atrist, but it is inter&shy;est&shy;ing to see how the pre{{-}}exist&shy;ing at&shy;ti&shy;tudes of offi&shy;cials brought him to the brink of ad&shy;mis&shy;sion. The overt polit&shy;ical im&shy;plica&shy;tions may make this ex&shy;ample ex&shy;cep&shy;tional{{dash|but it would not seem to be to the ad&shy;vant&shy;age of a person sus&shy;pected of mental ill&shy;ness to have been {{qq|mixed up in polit&shy;ics}} or {{qq|the dregs of so&shy;ciety in {{w|CND|Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament}}}}}}which it seems, may well be taken as a con&shy;firm&shy;atory symp&shy;tom.{{ref|dagger|&dagger;}} The mental health service{{dash|like the edu&shy;ca&shy;tion {{qq|service}}}}is a func&shy;tional part of the present so&shy;cial system and, as such, acts to pre&shy;serve that system and its values. {{qq|The psy&shy;chi&shy;atric pro&shy;fes&shy;sion is a bureau&shy;cracy,}} writes James Green, a con&shy;trib&shy;utor to ''{{l|Views|https://lccn.loc.gov/sf83002178}}'', No. 8, {{qq|making an es&shy;sen&shy;tial con&shy;trib&shy;u&shy;tion to the run&shy;ning of gov&shy;ern&shy;ment and ad&shy;minis&shy;tra&shy;tion. &hellip; Most psy&shy;chi&shy;atrists would prob&shy;ably take for granted the struc&shy;ture and values of their own so&shy;ciety, in such a way that the thera&shy;peutic pro&shy;cess becomes a ques&shy;tion of re&shy;turn&shy;ing the sick person to his so&shy;cial con&shy;text or roles, e.g. his family, whether the con&shy;text and roles are them&shy;selves satis&shy;fact&shy;ory.}} Al&shy;though no doubt un&shy;repre&shy;sent&shy;at&shy;ive and redol&shy;ent of {{qq|what they do in Russia}} I can&shy;not resist quot&shy;ing the words of a psy&shy;chi&shy;atrist par&shy;ti&shy;cipant in a re&shy;cently tele&shy;vised dis&shy;cus&shy;sion: {{qq|Our func&shy;tion is to get people well enough to be in&shy;doc&shy;trin&shy;ated.}} It would be mis&shy;lead&shy;ing to sug&shy;gest that any&shy;thing but a tiny minor&shy;ity become in&shy;mates of asylums simply or only because they hold dis&shy;ap&shy;proved {{p|359}}opin&shy;ions, but pos&shy;sibly such cases may lead to a con&shy;sider&shy;a&shy;tion of the far more subtle {{qq|polit&shy;ical}} and so&shy;cial mean&shy;ing of the label&shy;ling and con&shy;fine&shy;ment of the un&shy;vocal ma&shy;jor&shy;ity.


{{p|s4}}'''CURATIVE{{dash}}OR PUNITIVE?'''


{{tab}}{{qq|Many of us, for quite some time have con&shy;sidered that prob&shy;lems of pun&shy;ish&shy;ment and re&shy;pres&shy;sion are most acute in the con&shy;text of im&shy;prison&shy;ment. But this is not so; the ''really'' in&shy;tract&shy;able prob&shy;lem in this sphere is that of the mental hos&shy;pital.}}

{{r|Roger Moody: {{qq|Driving The Mad In&shy;sane}}, {{w|''Peace News''|Peace_News}} ({{popup|3.6.66|3 June 1966}}).}}


{{tab}}In his ac&shy;count of {{qq|[[Anarchy 4/Where the shoe pinches|de{{-}}in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion&shy;al&shy;isa&shy;tion]]}} ([[Anarchy 4|{{sc|anarchy}} 4]]) [[Author:Colin Ward|Colin Ward]] re&shy;ferred to the prison as {{qq|the most sin&shy;is&shy;ter of in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tions}} and no doubt it is. But as anarch&shy;ists are aware, the state can make skil&shy;ful use of the {{qq|ap&shy;proved}} con&shy;cepts of crime and crim&shy;in&shy;ality to di&shy;vert at&shy;ten&shy;tion from its own more grandi&shy;ose but identical activ&shy;it&shy;ies: so we should be alert to the pos&shy;si&shy;bil&shy;ity that the in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tions openly la&shy;belled as prisons are not the only ones serving that func&shy;tion. Sup&shy;pose, as Roger Moody says in his art&shy;icle that mental hos&shy;pital and prison are {{qq|dif&shy;fer&shy;ent terms for the same thing}}? If there is some truth in this there is con&shy;sequently an ad&shy;di&shy;tional danger in that any&shy;thing called a {{qq|hos&shy;pital}} has auto&shy;mat&shy;ic&shy;ally a pro&shy;tect&shy;ive cocoon around it as a result of its claim to pro&shy;vide ther&shy;apy. But surely the {{qq|volun&shy;tary}} presence of many of the pa&shy;tients in mental hos&shy;pitals en&shy;sures that they can&shy;not have a pun&shy;it&shy;ive char&shy;acter or ef&shy;fect? A dif&shy;fer&shy;ent ap&shy;proach is sug&shy;gested by the Amer&shy;ican so&shy;ci&shy;olo&shy;gist {{w|Erving Goffman|Erving_Goffman}}: {{qq|&hellip; We must see the mental hos&shy;pital, in the re&shy;cent histor&shy;ical con&shy;text in which it de&shy;veloped, as one among a net&shy;work of in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tions de&shy;signed to pro&shy;vide a res&shy;id&shy;ence for vari&shy;ous cat&shy;egor&shy;ies of so&shy;cially trouble&shy;some people.}}<ref>ibid., p. 354.</ref>

{{tab}}Goffman states that only a small number of pa&shy;tients enter mental hos&shy;pital will&shy;ingly, in the sense that they believe it will be good for them, having come to see them&shy;selves as {{qq|men&shy;tally un&shy;bal&shy;anced}}{{dash}}and as Laing and Cooper argue, even in these cases this self{{-}}per&shy;cep&shy;tion as being {{qq|ill}} or {{qq|mad}} can be in&shy;duced by the beha&shy;viour or strat&shy;egy of the person{{s}} im&shy;medi&shy;ate relat&shy;ives and con&shy;tacts. The sequence from {{qq|person to pa&shy;tient}} can follow a series of as&shy;so&shy;ci&shy;ated stages set in mo&shy;tion by a {{qq|com&shy;plain&shy;ant}} who sees an action on the part of the pre{{-}}pa&shy;tient as per&shy;haps a {{qq|last{{-}}straw}} and re&shy;fers him to a suc&shy;ces&shy;sion of {{qq|medi&shy;ators}}{{dash|prob&shy;ably drawn from among teach&shy;ers, so&shy;cial workers, clergy, psych&shy;iatrists, law&shy;yers, po&shy;lice}}one of whom, with co{{-}}opera&shy;tion from the {{qq|sick}} man{{s}} relat&shy;ives, will com&shy;mit the indi&shy;vidual to hos&shy;pital with legal sanc&shy;tion. {{qq|The so&shy;ciety{{s}} offi&shy;cial view,}} writes Goffman, {{qq|is that in&shy;mates are there because they are suf&shy;fer&shy;ing from mental ill&shy;ness. However, in the degree that the {{q|men&shy;tally ill}} out&shy;side hos&shy;pitals numer&shy;ically ap&shy;proach or sur&shy;pass those inside hos&shy;pitals, one could say that mental pa&shy;tients dis&shy;tinct&shy;ively suf&shy;fer not from mental ill&shy;ness, but from con&shy;tin&shy;gen&shy;cies.}}<ref>ibid., p. 135.</ref> In other words, good or bad luck{{dash}}de&shy;pend&shy;ing on your point of view. One might debate the degree to which this whole pro&shy;cess is {{qq|volun&shy;tary}}{{dash}}bear&shy;ing in mind that the indi&shy;vidual is un&shy;pre&shy;pared for the nature of his future life in the hos&shy;pital, is prob&shy;ably living {{p|360}}in so&shy;cially dis&shy;tres&shy;sing circum&shy;stances which would have the ef&shy;fect of making most al&shy;tern&shy;at&shy;ives seem favour&shy;able, and is sub&shy;ject to col&shy;lus&shy;ive pres&shy;sure from both relat&shy;ives and {{qq|medi&shy;ators}}.

{{tab}}As {{w|Malatesta|Errico_Malatesta}} noted in his essay {{qq|{{l|Anarchy|http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-anarchy}}}}, {{qq|Organs and func&shy;tions are in&shy;separ&shy;able terms. Take from an organ its func&shy;tion, and either the organ will die, or the func&shy;tion will re&shy;in&shy;state itself.}} The ex&shy;ist&shy;ence of the mental hos&shy;pital is just&shy;ified by its func&shy;tion of curing the men&shy;tally ill. {{qq|The pa&shy;tient{{s}} pres&shy;ence in the hos&shy;pital is taken as ''{{popup|prima facie|sufficient until proven otherwise}}'' evid&shy;ence that he is men&shy;tally ill, since the hos&shy;pital&shy;iza&shy;tion of these per&shy;sons is what the in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion is for.}} A very com&shy;mon answer to a pa&shy;tient who claims he is sane is the state&shy;ment: {{qq|If you aren{{t}} sick you wouldn{{t}} be in the hos&shy;pital.}}<ref>ibid., p. 380.</ref> One con&shy;sequence of this for the person ini&shy;tiated into a {{qq|career}} as a mental pa&shy;tient is that his past life will be re&shy;struc&shy;tured in terms of a {{qq|case history}}{{dash|and he may be denied rights of pri&shy;vacy over what he pre&shy;vi&shy;ously re&shy;garded as {{qq|his own busi&shy;ness}}}}any facet of which may now pro&shy;vide evid&shy;ence of {{qq|symp&shy;toms}}.<ref>For a re&shy;con&shy;struc&shy;tion of a psy&shy;chi&shy;atric inter&shy;roga&shy;tion see {{qq|The Case Con&shy;fer&shy;ence}}, ''{{l|Views|https://lccn.loc.gov/sf83002178}}'', No. 11, Summer, 1966. {{w|Elias Canetti<!-- 'Elia Canetti' in original -->|Elias_Canetti}} has written that {{qq|ques&shy;tion&shy;ing is a for&shy;cible in&shy;tru&shy;sion. When used as an in&shy;stru&shy;ment of power, it is like a knife cut&shy;ting into the flesh of the vic&shy;tim. &hellip; The most blat&shy;ant tyranny is the one that asks the most ques&shy;tions}} ({{w|''Crowds and Power''|Crowds_and_Power}}, Gollancz, 1962).</ref> Once inside, the pa&shy;tient may find the in&shy;ternal organ&shy;isa&shy;tion of they asylum domin&shy;ated by a {{qq|ward system}} separ&shy;at&shy;ing pa&shy;tients off into {{qq|dis&shy;ease}} cat&shy;egor&shy;ies, the vari&shy;ous levels pro&shy;vid&shy;ing dif&shy;fer&shy;ent stand&shy;ards of ac&shy;com&shy;mod&shy;a&shy;tion, food and grounds{{-}}and{{-}}town {{qq|priv&shy;ileges}}, among other factors of import&shy;ance in the life of the pa&shy;tient. The ma&shy;terial and so&shy;cial pro&shy;vi&shy;sions on each ward level are offi&shy;cially those that are most ap&shy;propri&shy;ate to the mental con&shy;di&shy;tion of the pa&shy;tient. But whilst the system may be just&shy;ified by its par&shy;tis&shy;ans on these grounds, it has an un&shy;ac&shy;know&shy;leged func&shy;tion as an inmate{{-}}con&shy;trol&shy;ling device. There is a direct par&shy;al&shy;lel here with the al&shy;leged pur&shy;pose of the {{w|stream&shy;ing|Tracking_(education)}} system in schools; in&shy;vari&shy;ably de&shy;fended on the basis of its edu&shy;ca&shy;tional value yet actu&shy;ally opera&shy;ting in schools as an im&shy;port&shy;ant com&shy;pon&shy;ent of the dis&shy;ciplin&shy;ary system. And in asylums, as in schools, these {{qq|divide and rule}} dis&shy;ciplin&shy;ary strat&shy;egies have de&shy;veloped as the best method of {{qq|man&shy;age&shy;ment by a small staff of a large number of in&shy;volun&shy;tary in&shy;mates}}.

{{tab}}Because so&shy;ciety needs luna&shy;tics to pro&shy;vide it with re&shy;as&shy;sur&shy;ance of its own san&shy;ity, so it has need of in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tions to con&shy;tain them. But as with prisons, the real enemy is not the ma&shy;terial struc&shy;ture{{dash|{{qq|It is our own anxi&shy;ety which forces us to lock people up}}<ref>A sen&shy;tence of Dr. Joshua Dierer{{s}}, speak&shy;ing at the {{w|World Federa&shy;tion of Mental Health|World_Federation_for_Mental_Health}}, 1960 (quoted by [[Author:Colin Ward|Colin Ward]] in {{qq|[[Anarchy 4/Where the shoe pinches|Where The Shoe Pinches]]}}, [[Anarchy 4|{{sc|anarchy}} 4]]).</ref>}}and it is through anxi&shy;ety about our own san&shy;ity that we build walls around the {{qq|men&shy;tally ill}}. {{qq|Mental hos&shy;pitals are not found in our so&shy;ciety because super&shy;visors, psych&shy;iatrists and at&shy;tend&shy;ants want jobs; mental hos&shy;pitals are found because there is a market for them. If all the mental hos&shy;pitals in a given region were emptied and closed down today, to&shy;morrow relat&shy;ives, po&shy;lice, and judges would raise a clamour for new ones; and these true clients of the mental hos&shy;pital would de&shy;mand an in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion to sat&shy;isfy their needs.}}<ref>Goffman, op. cit., p. 384.</ref>


{{p|s5}}'''SCHIZOPHRENIA{{dash}}A PSEUDO{{-}}DISEASE?'''


{{tab}}{{qq|In the popular mind the schizo&shy;phrenic is the proto{{-}}typical mad&shy;man{{dash}}author of the totally gra&shy;tu&shy;it&shy;ous crazy act that always has over&shy;tones of viol&shy;ence to others}}

{{r|{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}: ''Viol&shy;ence in Psychiatry''.}}


{{p|361}}{{tab}}The vari&shy;ous titles given to mental dis&shy;eases, says Goffman, serve to meet the needs of hos&shy;pital census regu&shy;la&shy;tions. {{qq|When pressed &hellip; staff will allow that these syn&shy;drome titles are vague and doubt&shy;ful.}} A lot of people at the present time, ap&shy;pear to have schizo&shy;phrenia{{dash}}this dia&shy;gnosis is ap&shy;plied to two out of three pa&shy;tients in British mental hos&shy;pitals and it has been estim&shy;ated that for every {{qq|schizo&shy;phrenic}} re&shy;ceiv&shy;ing some form of treat&shy;ment there are ten {{qq|un&shy;detec&shy;ted}} in the com&shy;mun&shy;ity.<ref>An estim&shy;ate made by the Swiss psy&shy;chi&shy;atrist {{w|E. Bleuler|Eugen_Bleuler}}, quoted by {{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}} in {{qq|The Anti{{-}}Hos&shy;pital}}.</ref>

{{tab}}One psycho{{-}}ana&shy;lytic view is that schizo&shy;phrenia is the out&shy;come of a split between a person{{s}} {{qq|con&shy;scious}} and {{qq|sub&shy;con&shy;scious}} forces which in the normal state are believed to work sim&shy;ul&shy;tan&shy;eously. An&shy;other idea{{dash}}in schizo&shy;phrenia {{qq|there is a subtle change in brain chem&shy;istry which inter&shy;feres in some way with nerve im&shy;pulses.}}<ref>{{popup|P. Rube|Peter Rube}}<!-- according to semanticscholar.org; dubious source -->, {{qq|Heal&shy;ing Pro&shy;cess in Schizo&shy;phrenia}}, ''{{w|Journal of Nervous and Mental Dis&shy;eases|Journal_of_Nervous_and_Mental_Disease}}'', 1948 (quoted by [[Author:John Linsie|John Linsie]] in {{qq|[[Anarchy 24/Schizophrenia: a social disease|Schizo&shy;phrenia: A So&shy;cial Dis&shy;ease]]}}, [[Anarchy 24|{{sc|anarchy}} 24]]).</ref> The pop&shy;ular&shy;ity of this view and others sim&shy;ilar to it has led to an em&shy;phasis on sur&shy;gical or phys&shy;ical treat&shy;ment such as electro{{-}}con&shy;vuls&shy;ive ther&shy;apy (a low voltage shock passed between the temples) and, in some cases, opera&shy;tions on the brain ({{w|leu&shy;co&shy;tomy|Lobotomy}} and {{w|lo&shy;botomy|Lobotomy}}). In at least one London hos&shy;pital schizo&shy;phrenics have been placed in a deep freeze. Drugs are much used. And it seems that what are taken to be the symp&shy;toms of the dis&shy;ease can be elim&shy;in&shy;ated by the use of such means at least for a time. As Sartre ob&shy;served, one {{qq|can ob&shy;tain a result by using merely tech&shy;nical methods.}} But, as the writer of a sur&shy;vey in ''The Ob&shy;server'' ({{popup|5.6.66|5 June 1966}}) com&shy;mented: {{qq|No one knows, ex&shy;cept in the fuzzi&shy;est out&shy;line, what the treat&shy;ments do. And none of them is a cure.}} [[Author:John Linsie|John Linsie]] in his [[Anarchy 24/Schizophrenia: a social disease|article]] in [[Anarchy 24|{{sc|anarchy}} 24]] pointed out that the ef&shy;fect&shy;ive&shy;ness of drugs and E.C.T. in tem&shy;por&shy;arily re&shy;moving {{qq|symp&shy;toms}} has per&shy;haps pre&shy;vented more wide&shy;spread re&shy;search into the basic aeti&shy;ology of the {{qq|dis&shy;ease}}. Schizo&shy;phrenia often oc&shy;curs within the same family and some re&shy;search&shy;ers believe that it is trans&shy;mitted ge&shy;net&shy;ic&shy;ally. John Linsie quoted {{w|Mayer{{-}}Gross|Wilhelm_Mayer-Gross}}: {{qq|It may now be re&shy;garded as estab&shy;lished that hered&shy;it&shy;ary factors play a pre&shy;domin&shy;ant role in the causa&shy;tion of schizo&shy;phrenic psy&shy;cho&shy;sis}}{{dash}}and then trumped this with the opinion of an&shy;other expert, {{w|Roth|Martin_Roth_(psychiatrist)}}: {{qq|No simple ge&shy;netic hypo&shy;thesis ac&shy;cords with all the facts.}}

{{tab}}This I hope is enough to pro&shy;vide some basis for R. D. Laing{{s}} and {{w|A. Esterson|Aaron_Esterson}}{{s}} state&shy;ment in the intro&shy;duc&shy;tion to ''San&shy;ity, Mad&shy;ness and the Family'' that there is no more dis&shy;puted condi&shy;tion in the whole field of medi&shy;cine. {{qq|The one thing cer&shy;tain about schizo&shy;phrenia is that it is a dia&shy;gnosis, that is a clin&shy;ical label, ap&shy;plied by some people to others.}}<ref>{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}, {{qq|What is Schizo&shy;phrenia?}}, ''{{w|New Left Review|New_Left_Review}}'', No. 28.</ref> The es&shy;sen&shy;tially so&shy;cial pro&shy;cess which results ul&shy;tim&shy;ately in the fixing of this label to one person is the under&shy;lying theme of three books and a good many articles by Dr. Laing and his col&shy;leagues. I shall try to out&shy;line their ac&shy;count of this pro&shy;cess sub&shy;sequently, but an idea of their truly rad&shy;ical con&shy;clu&shy;sions can be given here:

{{tab}}{{qq|We do not use the term {{q|schizo&shy;phrenia}} to de&shy;note any iden&shy;ti&shy;fi&shy;able condi&shy;tion which we believe exists {{q|in}} one person.}}<ref>{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}} and {{w|A. Esterson|Aaron_Esterson}}, ''San&shy;ity, Mad&shy;ness and the Family'', London, Tavi&shy;stock, 1964.</ref>

{{tab}}{{qq|I do not myself believe that there is any such {{q|condi&shy;tion}} as schizo&shy;phrenia. &hellip;}}<ref>{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}, {{qq|What is Schizo&shy;phrenia?}}, {{popup|op. cit.|opere citato: cited above}}</ref>

{{tab}}{{qq|Schizo&shy;phrenia is not a dis&shy;ease in one person but rather a crazy {{p|362}}way in which whole famil&shy;ies func&shy;tion. &hellip;}}<ref>{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}, {{qq|The Anti-Hos&shy;pital}}, {{popup|op. cit.|opere citato: cited above}}</ref>

{{tab}}{{qq|Schizo&shy;phrenia, if it means any&shy;thing, is a more or less char&shy;ac&shy;ter&shy;istic mode of dis&shy;turbed group beha&shy;viour. ''There are no schizo&shy;phrenics.''}}<ref>{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}, Viol&shy;ence in Psy&shy;chi&shy;atry, ''{{l|Views|https://lccn.loc.gov/sf83002178}}'', No. 8.</ref>


'''THE FAMILY{{dash}}{{qq|FROM GOOD TO BAD TO MAD}}'''


{{tab}}{{qq|Over the last two dec&shy;ades there has been a grow&shy;ing dis&shy;satis&shy;fac&shy;tion with any theory or study of the indi&shy;vidual which ar&shy;ti&shy;fi&shy;cially isol&shy;ates him from the con&shy;text of his life, inter&shy;per&shy;sonal and so&shy;cial.}}

{{r|{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}: ''{{w|The Self and Others|Self_and_Others}}''.}}


-----

<font size="2">{{hang|{{note|aster|*}} See ''The Divided Self'', pp. 41-42. For an ac&shy;count of the con&shy;sequences of the ob&shy;struc&shy;tion of this oc&shy;cur&shy;rence: {{qq|an ex&shy;ist&shy;en&shy;tially dead child}} see p. 183. In ''{{l|Views|https://lccn.loc.gov/sf83002178}}'', No. 8, {{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychologist)}} writes: {{qq|&hellip; the begin&shy;ning of per&shy;sonal de&shy;velop&shy;ment is never pure passiv&shy;ity. &hellip; From the first moment of mother-<wbr>child inter&shy;action, where each is an&shy;other to the other, the child is in the posi&shy;tion of having to ini&shy;ti&shy;ate the pro&shy;ject to become who&shy;ever he is to be, and this is in prin&shy;ciple a free choice, his free crea&shy;tion of his essen&shy;tial nature.}}

{{note|aster2|**}}<!-- single asterisk in original --> An art&shy;icle in {{w|''The Observer''|The_Observer}} ({{popup|4.9.66|4 September 1966}}) an&shy;nounced the forma&shy;tion of {{qq|Pro&shy;ject 70}}{{dash}}{{qq|a plan to rescue men&shy;tally normal old people from the wards of mental hos&shy;pitals.}}

{{note|aster3|***}}<!-- single asterisk in original --> This may be an al&shy;lu&shy;sion to a case which was re&shy;ceiv&shy;ing some pub&shy;li&shy;city at that time. Zenya Belov, a student, was con&shy;fined in a Russian mental in&shy;sti&shy;tu&shy;tion around Septem&shy;ber, 1965{{dash}}and he is pre&shy;sum&shy;ably still there. It was al&shy;leged that he had shown {{qq|schizo&shy;phrenic symp&shy;toms}} ({{qq|drawing dia&shy;grams, trying to re&shy;organ&shy;ise the world graph&shy;ic&shy;ally}}) but the only {{qq|symp&shy;toms}} evid&shy;ent to the British students who were with him shortly before the onset of {{qq|ill&shy;ness}} were his {{qq|un&shy;ortho&shy;dox and re&shy;form&shy;ist polit&shy;ical views}}.

{{note|dagger|&dagger;}} Refer&shy;ences to a letter from Brenda Jordan in ''{{w|Peace News|Peace_News}}'' (17.6.66).}}</font>


<font size="2">{{c|''Relev&shy;ant Books and Art&shy;icles not men&shy;tioned in Refer&shy;ences'':}}<!-- This section appears after 'NOTES' in original. It was moved because Wikimedia does not allow additional text after the <references> tag. -->


{{hang|{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}, {{qq|Series and Nexus in the Family}}, ''{{w|New Left Review|New_Left_Review}}'', No. 15.

{{w|David Cooper|David_Cooper_(psychiatrist)}}, {{qq|Sartre on Genet}}, ''{{w|New Left Review|New_Left_Review}}'', No. 25.

{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}, ''The Polit&shy;ics of Ex&shy;peri&shy;ence and the Bird of Para&shy;dise'', Penguin Books, Autumn, 1966.

{{w|R. D. Laing|R._D._Laing}}, {{popup|H. Phillip&shy;son|Herbert Phillipson, British clinical psychologist (1911-1992)}}, {{popup|A. R. Lee|A. Russell Lee}}, ''Inter&shy;per&shy;sonal Per&shy;cep&shy;tion'': ''A Theory and a Method'', London, Tavistock, 1966.

{{w|T. S. Szasz|Thomas_Szasz}}, ''The Myth of Mental Ill&shy;ness'', London, Seeker and Warburg, 1962.

{{w|Carl R. Rogers|Carl_Rogers}}, ''On Becoming a Person'', London, Constable & Co., 1961.}}</font>


<font size="2">{{c|''NOTES''}}</font>


<font size="2"><references></font>

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Libertarian psychiatry : an introduction to existential analysis}}
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