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Quote by R. D. Laing

“No one has the answer: we are answer and question.”

Quote by R. D. Laing

Author

R. D. Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist known for his unconventional views on schizophrenia and his contributions to psychotherapy. His theories emphasized the role of social and cultural factors in mental illness and had a profound impact on the field of psychiatry. more

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“The dynamics and structures found in those groups called families in our society may not be evident in those groups called families in other places and times.”

May Found Groups Structure Our Society Evident Dynamics Place And Time

Author:R. D. Laing

“Philosophy does not exist. It is nothing but an hypostatized abstraction.”

Doe Philosophy Abstraction

Author:R. D. Laing

“A psychiatrist who professes to be a healer of souls, but who keeps people asleep, treats them for waking up, and drugs them asleep again (increasingly effectively as this field of technology sharpens its weapons), helps to drive them crazy.”

People Soul Helping Technology Crazy Fields Drug Weapons Treats Wake Up Waking Psychiatrist Healer

Author:R. D. Laing

“Freud was a hero. He descended to the "Underworld" and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa's head which turned these terrors to stone. We who follow Freud have the benefit of the knowledge he brought back with him and conveyed to us. He survived. We must see of we now can survive without using a theory that is in some measure an instrument of defence.”

Theory Hero Mets Benefits Stones Instruments Terror Survived Defence Starks Underworld Medusa

Author:R. D. Laing

“Conventions are convenient. It is inconvenient to say people are dead when they are alive, or alive when they have been buried, or that the world is crumbling when it is, as everyone can see, there as usual. If all A that does not fit B is ipso facto disqualified, we have to tailor A to shape and size to avoid serious trouble, and not all are equally gifted in this art.”

People Ifs World Doe Has Beens Art Alive Trouble Serious Fit Shapes Size Buried Usual Conventions Gifted Convenient Inconvenient Tailors Crumbling

Author:R. D. Laing

“They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.”

Wisdom Vision Wise Aggravation Mesh

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“What is to be done? We who are still half alive, living in the often fibrillating heartland of a senescent capitalism -- can we do more than reflect the decay around and within us? Can we do more than sing our sad and bitter songs of disillusion and defeat?”

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Book:The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise

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“They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.”

Ifs Play Shows Games Break Seeing

Book:Selected Works of RD Laing: Knots

Source: Selected Works of RD Laing: Knots

“The fountain has not played itself out, the Flame still shines, the River still flows, the Spring still bubbles forth, the Light has not faded. But between us and It, there is a veil which is more like fifty feet of solid concrete. Deus absconditus. Or we have absconded.”

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Author:R. D. Laing

“In our society many of the old rituals have lost much of their power. New ones have not arisen.”

Lost Our Society Ritual

Author:R. D. Laing