So who is this RD laing bloke?
You may have come across R.D. Laing in standard text books in the chapter on Schizophrenia. The usual 'line' (if he is mentioned at all!) is that he was some sort of 'hippy' who had some odd ideas about schizophrenia and how it could be 'treated' in a caring community. You are then told that his ideas have no evidence to back them up and that the best treatment for this 'genetic' disorder is anti psychotic drugs.

So... What's the real story?
RD Laing (Ronnie to his friends) trained as a doctor, psychiatrist and then as a psychoanalyst and did have some interesting things to say about schizophrenia. These days when the standard approach to schizophenia (and its symptoms) are simply seen as brain / neurotransmitter dysfunction (with drugs to treat it) it is hard to think of any other approach, but in the sixties this (then new) approach did not seem the only way forward.
The anti psychiatry movement was very critical of attempts to 'medicalise' and physically treat most disorders (with brain surgery, Electro Convulsive Shocks (ECT) & Drugs, and Laing was part of this movement

What was Laing's approach to schizophrenia?
Key ideas

• Psychological problems (like schizophrenia) are psychological not brain problems.
• When people find the world too difficult to live in they respond as best they can given the situation... they may get depressed, stop eating, suffer panic attacks etc.
• In schizophrenia the world has become so difficult that being depressed etc. is just not enough. If this life is so grim then maybe an escape to an 'alternative' one (however bizarre!) might seem preferable.
• This means that the 'symptoms' of schizophenia are simply the 'sensible' way that people might try and live their life. (e.g. paranoia, catatonia (not the band!))
• This doesn't mean that these 'symptoms' are not very stressful and that they don't need help!
  

Treatment
We can help the individual work out what the 'symptoms' are about, and at the very least put them in a very supportive environment. Laing was a great believer that the best person to help the 'client' was themselves and the key to therapy was in creating a 'space' which would allow this to happen.
Therapy therefore would be individual (everyone different!), based on mutual trust, supportive, non judgmental, and equal (client / therapist) with the main aim to help the person 'heal' themselves.

It is not surprising that this kind of therapy is very hard to test in conventional ways and would seem 'wishy washy' compared to drug treatment.

What's the relevance today?
Drug treatments can be effective 'calmers' and seem to help the most obvious 'symptoms' of schizophrenia (and other disorders!) but do they solve peoples life problems?
People are often on tablets for long periods of time, taking drugs which have unpleasant side effects, may cause brain damage, can be addictive and they often have to go back for more treatment (the revolving door!)
Even some cognitive psychologists have begun to try to understand the world of the 'schizophrenic' Is it time for a re-appraisal of the 'Old Hippy'?

A few quotes: (out of context!)
'The experience and behaviour that gets labelled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unliveable situation.'

'Normality highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.'

'Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.'