SOURCE: "R. D. Laing," in The New Left, edited by Maurice Cranston, The Library Press, 1971, pp. 179-208.

In the following excerpt, Martin summarizes Laing's views on society and the family and his theory and method for the treatment of schizophrenia. He also argues that Laing's work is characterized by generalities, exaggerations, and undeveloped ideas, stating: "(Laing is) on the fringes of the irrationalist Left which stigmatizes and condemns all aspects of socialization and civilization as injurious to truth and the individual's being."

Ronald Laing must be accounted one of the main contributors to the theoretical and rhetorical armoury of the contemporary Left. By the contemporary left is meant that soft variant of the utopian urge which has jettisoned the Marx of Capital for the spiritual exploration of alienation, which acknowledges that capitalism 'delivers the goods to an ever increasing part of the population' and therefore concentrates its attention...