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R. D. Laing's impact on the mental health profession over the last quarter of a century has been both complex and diverse. There is nevertheless one consistent and prevalent theme that has persisted in all of Laing's books that is readily discernible to anyone who is familiar with his message. Simply put, Laing's work is epitomized by his opposition to the use of any intervention that runs the risk of alienating one's patients from the very people who are trying to help them. Laing believed that many of the tools customarily employed by psychiatrists and psychotherapists, unbeknownst to themselves, often objectify the patients they treat. Those patients are made to feel less like persons who are desperately seeking their emancipation than treatment “entities”who are molded into a preconceived scheme.
The most telling feature of Laing's clinical technique was his radical — some would say provocative — efforts to eliminate the enormous gulf that customarily exists between therapists and their patients. This is why Laing insisted that it is important to behave in such a way that reassures one's patients that they are in the presence of another human being like themselves; a person who is no doubt more together, but who nonetheless shares the same day-to-day concerns —and the same kind of pain.
To whom was Laing indebted for this markedly ethical imperative in his work? While his intellectual influences can be traced to a variety of sources — Eastern religions, the American family therapy