R. D. Laing Critical Essay | Critical Review by Robert Coles

SOURCE: "Life's Madness," in The New Republic, Vol. 156, No. 19, May 13, 1967, pp. 24-8, 30.

Coles is an American psychiatrist, educator, nonfiction writer, essayist, and poet whose particular area of interest is the psychological development of children; he is the author of, among other works, The Spiritual Life of Children (1990). In the following review of The Politics of Experience, he praises Laing's literary skills and the ways in which he articulates his views regarding "the demonic and chaotic in man" and modern psychotherapy's approach to madness.

One of the ways psychiatrists have sorted themselves out in recent years has to do with the importance they give to concepts like "the normal," or "maturity" or "mental health." Some are dead serious about letting their patients and the public know what is abnormal or immature. On television they urge me to "fight mental illness," and though I am not...
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