ABSTRACT
Madness At one time to speak of madness or the mad was considered to be an old-fashioned and retrograde way of referring to mental illness or the mentally ill. Now it is used in the attempt to rescue a particular range of deviant behaviour from the control, and the vocabulary, of the medical profession. 'Madness' is a term favoured by those who seek to oppose psychiatric imperialism and by writers such as Szasz, Cooper, and Laing. It is also a term of common lay usage and serves as a reminder of the long history of control and service of those judged to be leading irrational or potentially destructive lives. Siegler, M. et al. (1969) 'Laing's Models of Madness', British Journal of
Psychiatry, 115,947-58.
