The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise

In �The Politics of Experience� and the visionary �Bird of Paradise�, R.D. Laing shows how the straitjacket of conformity imposed on us all leads to intense feelings of alienation and a tragic waste of human potential. He throws into question the notion of normality, examines schizophrenia and psychotherapy, transcendence and �us and them� thinking, and illustrates his ideas with a remarkable case history of a ten-day psychosis. �We are bemused and crazed creatures,� Laing suggests. This outline of �a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man� represents a major attempt to understand our deepest dilemmas and sketch in solutions. �Everyone in contemporary psychiatry owes something to R.D. Laing� Anthony Clare, the Guardian.