Radical psychiatry

What do radical psychiatry argue the cause of mental health is?

Social influences

What needs to be changed in order to solve the patient’s issues?

These social influences

Laing saw the family as the key source of what?

Madness and specifically schizophrenia

What needs to be explored of those who are mentally ill?

Exploring their social context of their lives. Especially family life and the power relations within their family

What did Laing say about parents who are called ‘normal’?

That parents who are called ‘normal’ got their children to love them by ‘terrorising’ them and by acting as ‘gangsters’

How might parents be compared to gangsters?

As they use rewards and punishments

What does he see the family as truly being underneath the surface calm?

As a place of suffocating and emotional intensity.

What ensnares the members of a family in a complex and painful pattern?

A nightmare of complicated webs

What suggestion does Laing offer for change?

Talking therapy

What is meant by the dark side of the family?

The physical, mental, sexual abuse. The domestic violence. The negligence.

Evaluation of Laing

What is the name of the person who criticises Laing?

Parsons

What does Parsons say we should focus on in terms of the family?

The support the family provides

What does the family do for children?

Primary socialise children

What do adults provide in the family?

Adults are there to provide emotional support to children, not to terrorise them

Leach

What does Leach describe modern family life as?

‘An overloaded electrical circuit’ and a place ‘where parents fight and children rebel’

What does leach believe the isolated modern family has been like for its members?

Emotionally catastrophic for it’s members as there is no one to run to if there are rows

Evaluation of Leach

What is the name of the person that criticises Leach?

Functionalist Parsons

What does Parsons say that gender roles within the family lead to?

Harmony and support between all members

What does this show about the members of a family?

That they are supportive of each other