ABSTRACT
R.D. Laing and his wife Jutta were friends of mine. I was his PA during the preparation and execution of the ‘Dialectics of Liberation’ conference at the Round House in July 1967, and shortly after we became linked in sharing the experiences of parenthood. Jutta gave birth to her rst son Adam several months before my rst child Tanya was born and inevitably questions and philosophies of parenthood were frequent sources of our conversations. It is no secret that Laing felt a grudge towards his own mother for constantly impinging on his space and growing autonomy. One small example of where he seemed to maintain a lifelong resentment towards her was because he held her behaviour with regard to the withholding of any ‘sweet treats’ when he was little as a source of his subsequent addiction to eating sweets illicitly, and later on irresponsibly until he had ruined his adult teeth.
