I received this from my friend Bob at Citystrolls, and thought it worthy of re-posting. Here it is in full:
Best time of the year for me is not
that mad Christmas thing, or the witless drinking the bells have
become. It's those few days after New Year, just before folk go back
to work. After the pressure has ebbed and there seems to be a bit of
calmness in the air. You will recognise it when it happens. People
just seem to wander about, go for a walk in the park, unrushed. Its a
great wee part of human space and for thinking ahead and of communion
and camaraderie. Don't waste it, it only happens once a year. The
following always reminds me of it. All the best for 2014. There's
going to be plenty to think about :) B.
R. D. Laing from ‘Wisdom, Madness and
Folly’
Can a psychiatric institution exist for ‘really’ psychotic people where there is communication within solidarity, community and communion, instead of the It-district, the no-man’s-land between staff and patients? This rift or rent in solidarity may be healed in a professional therapeutic relationship. A ‘relationship’, professional or otherwise, which does not heal this rent can hardly be called therapeutic since it seems to me that what is professionally called a ‘therapeutic relationship’ cannot exist without a primary human camaraderie being present and manifest. If it is not there to start with, therapy will have been successful if it is there before it ends. There can be no solidarity if a basic, primary, fellow human feeling of being together has been lost or is absent. It is not easy to retain this feeling when you press the button. Very seldom, when I pressed the button, could I feel I was doing for this chap in terrible mental agony what I hoped he would do for me if I had his mind and brains and he had mine.
Can a psychiatric institution exist for ‘really’ psychotic people where there is communication within solidarity, community and communion, instead of the It-district, the no-man’s-land between staff and patients? This rift or rent in solidarity may be healed in a professional therapeutic relationship. A ‘relationship’, professional or otherwise, which does not heal this rent can hardly be called therapeutic since it seems to me that what is professionally called a ‘therapeutic relationship’ cannot exist without a primary human camaraderie being present and manifest. If it is not there to start with, therapy will have been successful if it is there before it ends. There can be no solidarity if a basic, primary, fellow human feeling of being together has been lost or is absent. It is not easy to retain this feeling when you press the button. Very seldom, when I pressed the button, could I feel I was doing for this chap in terrible mental agony what I hoped he would do for me if I had his mind and brains and he had mine.
This issue of
solidarity and camaraderie between me as a doctor and those
patients did not arise for me, it did not occur to me until I was in
the British Army, a psychiatrist and a lieutenant, sitting in padded
cells in my own ward with completely psychotic patients, doomed to
deep insulin and electric shocks in the middle of the night. For the
first time it dawned on me that it was almost impossible for a
patient to be a pal or for a patient to have a snowball’s chance in
hell of finding a comrade in me. It would be a mistake to suppose
that ‘mental’ institutions are It-districts. There may be a lot
of camaraderie between staff and staff, and patients and patients.
But there tends to be an It-district between staff and patients. Why
this should be so may not be immediately apparent. But when one looks
into it one sees that it can hardly be otherwise, under the
circumstances.
All communication occurs on the basis either of
strife, camaraderie or confusion. There can be communication without
communion. This is the norm. There is very little communion in many
human transactions. The greatest danger facing us, the human species,
is ourselves. We are not at peace with one another. We are at strife,
not in communion.
The New Year is the biggest celebration in Scotland. It is marked by prolonged carousing on the part of the alcoholic fraternity, but many teetotallers celebrate the spirit of the New Year contentedly sober. There is no ‘religion’ about it. There is a special spirit abroad – ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’ In Gartnavel, in the so-called ‘back wards’, I have seen catatonic patients who hardly make a move, or utter a word, or seem to notice or care about anyone or anything around them year in and year out, smile, laugh, shake hands, wish someone ‘A guid New Year’ and even dance…and then by the afternoon or evening or next morning revert to their listless apathy. The change, however fleeting, in some of the most chronically withdrawn, ‘backward’ patients is amazing. If any drug had this effect, for a few hours, even minutes, it would be world famous, and would deserve to be celebrated as much as the Scottish New Year. The intoxicant here however is not a drug, not even alcoholic spirits, but the celebration of a spirit of fellowship.
The New Year is the biggest celebration in Scotland. It is marked by prolonged carousing on the part of the alcoholic fraternity, but many teetotallers celebrate the spirit of the New Year contentedly sober. There is no ‘religion’ about it. There is a special spirit abroad – ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’ In Gartnavel, in the so-called ‘back wards’, I have seen catatonic patients who hardly make a move, or utter a word, or seem to notice or care about anyone or anything around them year in and year out, smile, laugh, shake hands, wish someone ‘A guid New Year’ and even dance…and then by the afternoon or evening or next morning revert to their listless apathy. The change, however fleeting, in some of the most chronically withdrawn, ‘backward’ patients is amazing. If any drug had this effect, for a few hours, even minutes, it would be world famous, and would deserve to be celebrated as much as the Scottish New Year. The intoxicant here however is not a drug, not even alcoholic spirits, but the celebration of a spirit of fellowship.
There are interfaces
in the socio-economic-political structure of our society where
communion is impossible or almost impossible. We are ranged on
opposite sides. We are enemies, we are against each other before
we meet. We are so far apart as not to recognise the other even as a
human being or, if we do, only as one to be abolished immediately.
This rift or rent occurs between master and slave, the wealthy and
the poor, on the basis of such differences as class, race, sex,
age.
It crops up also across the sane-mad line. It occurred to me that it might be a relevant factor in some of the misery and disorder of certain psychotic processes; even sometimes, possibly, a salient factor in aetiology, care, treatment, recovery or deterioration. This rift or rent is healed through a relationship with anybody, but it has to be somebody. Any ‘relationship’ through which this fracture heals is ‘therapeutic’, whether it is what is called, professionally, a ‘therapeutic relationship’ or not. The loss of a sense of human solidarity and camaraderie and communion affects people in different ways. Some people never seem to miss it. Others can’t get on without it. It was not easy to retain this feeling when I pressed the button to give someone an electric shock if I could not feel I was doing to him what I hoped he would do for me if I had his brains and he mine. I gave up ‘pressing the button’.
From:
Workers City “The Real Glasgow Stands Up”
Edited By Farquar McLay Clydeside Press
It crops up also across the sane-mad line. It occurred to me that it might be a relevant factor in some of the misery and disorder of certain psychotic processes; even sometimes, possibly, a salient factor in aetiology, care, treatment, recovery or deterioration. This rift or rent is healed through a relationship with anybody, but it has to be somebody. Any ‘relationship’ through which this fracture heals is ‘therapeutic’, whether it is what is called, professionally, a ‘therapeutic relationship’ or not. The loss of a sense of human solidarity and camaraderie and communion affects people in different ways. Some people never seem to miss it. Others can’t get on without it. It was not easy to retain this feeling when I pressed the button to give someone an electric shock if I could not feel I was doing to him what I hoped he would do for me if I had his brains and he mine. I gave up ‘pressing the button’.
From:
Workers City “The Real Glasgow Stands Up”
Edited By Farquar McLay Clydeside Press
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
