[gruseom]

R.D. Laing is a major figure in the history of psychiatry and psychotherapy. His radical critique of how society treats the mentally ill, and advocacy for a more humane approach, are legendary. Laing was also a charismatic guy who became a celebrity of the 60s and 70s counterculture.

The most famous of Laing's experiments was Kingsley Hall, where patients and therapists (though presumably they didn't use those terms) would live together, and where the focus was on helping through simple presence and relationship rather than techniques or treatments. Here is a striking, even astonishing story from one of the houses Laing started after Kingsley Hall: https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/living-one-r-d-laings-p.... I posted it here years ago, where it didn't get one upvote (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259), but I still think it's one of the most interesting submissions I've made to HN.

The author of that piece, who at the time of the story was a young therapist enamored of Laing's approach, is now the founder of the new(ish) Gnosis Retreat Center in San Francisco, along with a bunch of other people who worked with Laing. Here he is talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-lJWwwRc8#t=8m53s.

I think it's interesting that they are making a fresh start at reviving what Laing did, and that it's in San Francisco. That's why I posted this, though I certainly didn't mean to bork their server!