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Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst
Sigmund Freud's views, particularly of women, may no longer be fashionable, but for his contribution to the study of the human psyche, he remains hugely influential. The founder of psychoanalysis, Freud developed a theory of the mind that included its own therapy, while at the same time examining the societal and cultural causes of mental illness.
Freud was born in Freiberg, now part of the Czech Republic, but spent most of his life in Vienna, a city that he never particularly liked, primarily because of the anti-Semitism of the Viennese. He studied medicine, developing an early interest in the pharmaceutical benefits of cocaine. This did little for his reputation as a physician, but signalled his willingness to attempt extreme solutions to human problems.
Freud encouraged free association writing in his patients, a technique that, he believed, revealed their unconscious thoughts. Neurotic conditions, he believed, were caused by blockages in the unconscious mind, the source of which, he felt, was usually sexual, and generally formed in childhood. His theories were blatantly phallocentric, with male problems often traced to castration anxiety and women's neuroses attributed to penis envy.
Find out more …
The Freud Page
www.freudpage.com/en-us/freud/biography.html
Everything you wanted to know about Sigmund.
The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, edited by A A Brill (Modern Library, 1995) £20.95.
Selection of the most important writings of the 19th-century psychoanalyst, including Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The Interpretation of Dreams and Totem and Taboo.
R(onald) D(avid) Laing 1927-89
British psychiatrist
R D Laing is as much a hero of the mad as he is a madness guru. His approach to the analysis and treatment of schizophrenia was ground-breaking. Laing opposed the traditional, invasive and painful treatments for people with schizophrenia, such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), and argued against the idea that the mentally ill should be entirely cut off from the rest of society.
Instead, Laing suggested, it is the world that is mad, rather than some unfortunate people in it. He argued that madness should be treated not as a breakdown but as a breakthrough, and that those of us who perceive ourselves as 'normal' could learn from the insane.
In The Divided Self, Laing laid much of the blame for schizophrenia at the door of the family. Parents who mask anger with gentleness and hate with love only contribute to the splits within our identities, he said. In The Politics of Experience, Laing suggested that madness might be viewed as a way of transcending alienation.
Laing's views were highly controversial and, although his work on schizophrenia was influential, he was regarded with some suspicion within the psychiatric community.
Find out more …
Unofficial R D Laing website
www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5214/laing.html
Contains quotes by and about Laing, plus book reviews and a bibliography.
The Politics of Experience by R D Laing (Penguin, 1990) £7.99.
Laing attacks accepted assumptions about the nature of 'normality' with a challenging view of the mental sickness built into our society.
Ken (Elton) Kesey 1935-
American novelist and Merry Prankster
Ken Kesey achieved world fame at the age of just 27 with the publication of his debut novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1963). The inspiration for the book was Kesey's experience as a volunteer at the Manlo Park Veterans Hospital, where he participated in a study on the effects of mind-altering substances, notably LSD.
Kesey was born in Colorado and brought up and educated in Oregon. He then won a scholarship to Stamford University in California, where he studied creative writing. He dropped out in 1959 to join the counterculture.
Following his stint at Manlo Park, he embraced drug culture, including a prison sentence for marijuana possession. Along with his band of Merry Pranksters — a group of hedonistic travellers who included the Beat icon Neal Cassady — Kesey threw parties known as 'acid tests', where guests were knowingly or unknowingly given LSD. Details of the parties are described in the Tom Wolfe book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968). The Merry Pranksters travelled across the US in a day-glo-painted school bus, spreading the psychedelic drug message. Along with Timothy Leary , Bob Dylan and The Beatles, Kesey was at the forefront of acid head culture.
Kesey continued to write, producing relatively successful works such as Sometimes a Great Notion and The Further Enquiry.
Find out more …
Ken Kesey — Biography
www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/about_ken_kesey.html
Biography with summary and analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, plus a message board and a quiz.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (Picador, 1980) £6.99.
The counterculture embraced this allegory of individualism versus the establishment, which, as a film, gave Jack Nicholson one of his first memorable roles.