R. D. Laing, The Politics of the Family

Daniel Burston (Duquesne University); Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Domains

Family Politics
Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 1971

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

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In 1968, Phyllis Webb of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation approached R.D. Laing to deliver the Massey Lecture Series for the CBC's radio series IDEAS. These five talks were aired in Toronto and around the country in 1969, and published as

The Politics of the Family

. These talks were then edited, expanded and subsequently re-published, along with “Intervention in Social Situations” and several other essays, by Pantheon, Laing's American Publisher, in 1971, under the same title (Laing, 1971). As in

Sanity, Madness and the Family

, Laing is trying to demonstrate the social intelligibility of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. And as regards the rest of us, i.e. the putatively sane, Laing is trying to elucidate the ways in which group pressures and processes promote…

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639 words

Citation: Burston, Daniel, Gavin Miller. "The Politics of the Family". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16852, accessed 22 November 2024.]