BIBLIO is the largest independent book marketplace in the world, with over 100 million books.

Skip to content

Sanity, Madness and the Family
Stock photo: cover may vary

Sanity, Madness and the Family Hardback - 2017

by R. D. Laing; Aaron Esterson

Add to wish list

Reader reviews for Sanity, Madness and the Family

From the publisher

In the late 1950s the psychiatrist R.D.Laing and psychoanalyst Aaron Esterson spent five years interviewing eleven families of female patients diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'. Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family. But it was the conclusions they drew from their research that caused such controversy: they suggest that some forms of mental disorder are only comprehensible within their social and family contexts; their symptoms the manifestations of people struggling to live in untenable situations.

Sanity, Madness and the Family was met with widespread hostility by the psychiatric profession on its first publication, where the prevailing view was to treat psychosis as a medical problem to be solved. Yet it has done a great deal to draw attention to the complex and contested nature of psychosis. Above all, Laing and Esterson thought that if you understood the patient's world their apparent madness would become socially intelligible.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Hilary Mantel.

Details

  • Title Sanity, Madness and the Family
  • Author R. D. Laing; Aaron Esterson
  • Binding Hardback
  • Pages 312
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Routledge
  • Publication date 2017
  • ISBN 9781138462045 / 1138462047
  • Category Psychology
  • Dewey Decimal Code 616.898

About the author

R.D. Laing (1927-1989) was one of the best-known and most controversial psychiatrists of the post-war period. After a short period as a psychiatrist in the British Army he moved to the Tavistock Institute in London in 1956, where he worked alongside leading psychotherapists such as John Bowlby and D.W. Winnicott. In 1965 he co-founded the Philadelphia Practice in London, where patients, doctors and staff mixed freely without hierarchy. His many books include The Divided Self, Self and Others and Knots.

Aaron Esterson (1923-1999) was an existential psychoanalyst and family therapist, and with R.D. Laing helped found the Philadelphia Practice.

More Copies for Sale

Sanity, Madness and the Family

Sanity, Madness and the Family

by Aaron Esterson

  • New
  • Hardback
Condition
New
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781138462045 / 1138462047
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$408.49
A$15.41 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
Hardback. New. New Book; Fast Shipping from UK; Not signed; Not First Edition; Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$408.49
A$15.41 Delivery to USA
Sanity, Madness and the Family
Stock photo: cover may vary

Sanity, Madness and the Family

by Laing, R. D.

  • New
  • Hardback
Condition
New
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781138462045 / 1138462047
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$460.36
A$48.23 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
Routledge, 2017. Hardcover. New. 7.79x5.07x1.21 inches.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$460.36
A$48.23 Delivery to USA
Sanity, Madness and The Family
Stock photo: cover may vary

Sanity, Madness and The Family

by Laing, R D,

  • Used
Condition
New
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781138462045 / 1138462047
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$367.95
A$5.74 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
like new.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$367.95
A$5.74 Delivery to USA
Sanity, Madness and The Family
Stock photo: cover may vary

Sanity, Madness and The Family

by Laing, R D,

  • New
Condition
New
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781138462045 / 1138462047
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$367.95
A$5.74 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
new.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$367.95
A$5.74 Delivery to USA