
The Ghost of R. D. Laing: Anaretic Man.
It was Laing’s radical work with the schizophrenic women of Glasgow that first piqued my interest. My own grandmother, a working- class widow in the 1950s, raising a child (my mother) in poverty, with a heavy burden of inherited trauma (her own mother had died giving birth to her), was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From a young age (about 11), I felt a strong pull and a deep calling to investigate my grandmother’s life, the conditions of her life, and the culture in which she was living. This has profoundly shaped me and influenced my work. I am still on this journey today.


