ABSTRACT
This chapter examines key artistic works about the late R. D. Laing in order to consider what they illuminate about his ideas and legacies. It explores three key thematic areas in order to unpick the artistic and clinical legacies of Laing for student’s times: empathy, communication and gaze. The chapter also explores the 'fruity' moment of Penhall's perspicacious play: firstly, the ancient debate as to the origins and thresholds of the kingdom of madness and secondly, the long-standing joke that psychiatrists are often madder than their patients. Thirdly, that Laing is a 'crackpot' relic of a bygone period in psychiatric history, best left to the arts students and their many tights. Indeed, Mary Barnes in life, in memoir, and in the play, embodies the 'triumph' of Laing's approach to treating psychosis. Laing counters Emil Kraepelin's reading of the scene by attempting to decipher the patient's apparently illogical monologue.
