The politics of the family: Laing and Esterson in context

Segal, Lynne (2018) The politics of the family: Laing and Esterson in context. Journal of Psychosocial Studies 11 (1), pp. 104-125.

Abstract

It is always a good time to revisit the work of authors who become iconic of their time and place, all the more so when they were critical in the development of one’s own intellectual and political life. It is also an excellent time to revisit R. D. Laing’s and Aaron Esterson’s Sanity, Madness and the Family when concern over the state of ‘troubled families’ (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2014) is high on our current Tory government’s agenda, while alarm over apparently everrising levels of mental stress and ill health are ubiquitous. On the surface, governments around the world have been busy measuring happiness; underneath, they are more worried by unease over the upsurge of melancholia, depression and anxiety. The last measurement of mental health in the UK in 2009 (see Sweet, 2011) reported that a quarter of the population will experience some mental health problem in the course of a year, with anxiety and depression the most common symptoms (10.9%), and 0.8% of the population diagnosed with a mental illness such as schizophrenia.

Metadata

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Activity Overview

6 month trend

193Downloads

6 month trend

189Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

Archive Staff Only (login required)

Edit/View Item