Ronald David Laing, usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness – in particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of psychopathological phenomena were influenced by his study of existential philosophy and ran counter to the chemical and electroshock methods that had become psychiatric orthodoxy. Taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of personal experience rather than simply as symptoms of mental illness, Laing regarded schizophrenia as a theory not a fact. Though associated in the public mind with the anti-psychiatry movement, he rejected the label. Politically, he was regarded as a thinker of the New Left. Laing was portrayed by David Tennant in the 2017 film Mad to Be Normal.
Art therapy is a distinct discipline that incorporates creative methods of expression through visual art media. Art therapy, as a creative arts therapy profession, originated in the fields of art and psychotherapy and may vary in definition.
The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country’s national academy of art. It promotes contemporary Scottish art.
James Boyle is a Scottish former gangster and convicted murderer who became a sculptor and novelist after his release from prison.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is an executive agency of the Scottish Government tasked with managing prisons and Young Offender Institutions.
HM Prison Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland. It is operated by the Scottish Prison Service and is located in the residential suburb of Riddrie, in the north east of Glasgow, Scotland. It is informally known locally as The Big Hoose, Bar and Bar-L. In 2018, plans for its closure were announced.
Cornton Vale is a women's prison in Stirling, operated by the Scottish Prison Service. Built in 1975, Cornton Vale comprises a total of 217 cells in its 5 houses. It accepted solely convicted women and girls from 1975 until 1978. In 1978 Parliament passed the necessary legislation to allow females to be held there on remand. Cornton Vale houses female adults and young offenders in Scotland, Alongside HMP Grampian, HMP Edinburgh and HMP Polmont. In April 1999, the separation of adults and young offenders was attained. It was expected to close by 2020, to be replaced by a number of smaller regional units which have been delayed. Lady Martha Bruce was the first Governor. The Current Governor at Cornton Vale is Jackie Clinton.
Laura McPhee is an American photographer known for making detailed large-format photographs of the cultural landscape—images which raise questions about human impacts on the environment and the nature of our complex and contested relationship to the earth.
Angus McPhee or MacPhee (1916–1997) was a Scottish Outsider Artist, who lived as a young man in the community of Eochar on the island of South Uist, part of the Outer Hebrides. He made his art by weaving found vegetation, such as grasses, into extraordinary garments. He also used sheep's wool picked from barbed wire fences, and leaves. MacPhee created most of his work whilst in the Craig Dunain Hospital near Inverness. He chose not to speak for 50 years.
Gerald Ogilvie-Laing was a British pop artist and sculptor. He lived in the Scottish Highlands.
Edward Adamson was a British artist, "the father of Art Therapy in Britain", and the creator of the Adamson Collection.
Edith Kramer (1916–2014) was an Austrian social realist painter, a follower of psychoanalytic theory and an art therapy pioneer.
Ethel Agnes Mary Moorhead was a British suffragette and painter and was the first suffragette in Scotland to be forcibly-fed.
Events from the year 1997 in Scotland
Joyce W. Cairns is a Scottish painter and printmaker based in Broughty Ferry, Scotland. In 2018, she was elected president of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA).
Dr Jenni Fagan is a Scottish novelist and poet. She has written several books including fiction novel The Panopticon, screenplays and several books of poetry. She was named Scottish writer of the year 2016 by The Glasgow Herald.
Caroline McNairn was a Scottish figurative painter.
(Johnston) Douglas Haldane MBE, FRCPsych was a pioneering Scottish child psychiatrist, who established Great Britain's first department of Child and Family Psychiatry in 1960 in Cupar in Fife. He opened the first family in-patient treatment unit in Scotland and introduced a range of innovative therapeutic art interventions. He sat on numerous policy working parties and led a variety of professional committees. He became a founding member of the Association for Family Therapy. He was a co-founder of the Scottish Institute of Human Relations. During his time as an academic, he devoted much time to influence the development of a government policy on Marriage. In the 1960s, he was also an elder of the Church of Scotland and a member of an early Iona Community group.
Elizabeth Ranken is a British choreographer, performer, director, movement director and artist. She is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and was a lead performer with DV8 Physical Theatre. Her work encompasses opera, theatre, physical theatre, dance, television, film and art.
Hilke MacIntyre is German artist living and working in St Andrews, Scotland. She grew up near Kiel and studied architecture there. MacIntyre's work includes lino cuts, prints and ceramics.
