The world is full of big bad wolves

Investigating the experimental therapeutic spaces of R.D. Laing and Aaron Esterson

Bibliographic Data

ID7433786
AuthorsCheryl Mcgeachan (0000-0001-7476-6218, University of Glasgow, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume25
Issue3
Pages283-298
Publication date2014-08-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0957-154X • E-ISSN: 1740-2360
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0957154x14529222
PMID25114145
PMCIDPMC4230397
OpenAlexW2109124941
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited18

In conjunction with the recent critical assessments of the life and work of R.D. Laing, this paper seeks to demonstrate what is revealed when Laing’s work on families and created spaces of mental health care are examined through a geographical lens. The paper begins with an exploration of Laing’s time at the Tavistock Clinic in London during the 1960s, and of the co-authored text with Aaron Esterson entitled, Sanity, Madness and the Family (1964). The study then seeks to demonstrate the importance Laing and his colleague placed on the time-space situatedness of patients and their worlds. Finally, an account is provided of Laing’s and Esterson’s spatial thinking in relation to their creation of both real and imagined spaces of therapeutic care

Mental health care · Sanity · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism

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