R. D. Laing Collection

The papers of Ronald David Laing (1927-1989), the psychotherapist and writer. The collection includes medical correspondence and case notes, financial papers, diaries, appointment books, notebooks, press-cuttings, drafts of published works, unpublished writings and lectures, interviews, films and recordings, and the draft biography of R.D. Laing by Adrian Laing. Accompanying the papers is Laing's personal library of books and music, as well as copies of his own publications. This extensive personal archive closely charts Laing's professional and private Odyssey, the considerable body of correspondence with professional colleagues and numerous friends standing at its centre. The many notebooks and commonplace books reveal his thinking on a broad range of subjects, while his appointment books provide a full and fascinating insight into his daily routine, social life and wide personal contacts.

The collection was purchased from the estate of R.D.Laing in July 1997, its acquisition being made possible with the generous support of the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Friends of Glasgow University Library. It is intended that the collection will be augmented by selective purchases in the future.

The cataloguing of the collection was completed with funding from the Wellcome Trust's Research Resources in Medical History programme.

See also the web pages for the Society of Laingian Studies, an international society dedicated to furthering discussion, research and scholarship in the philosophy and practice of  Laing.

Please note: as a consequence of the sensitive nature of much of this material, it is necessary to complete an application form before access will be permitted to the manuscript collection: please download the form provided here, sign and send to the address at the head of the form. This form has to be vetted before access to the collection is allowed (please note that this might take a few days). If you have any queries regarding its completion please contact special@lib.gla.ac.uk:

• Application form for Laing collection

How to find material from the R. D. Laing Collection

• Records for the papers have the shelf-mark MS Laing (this links to a collection level description with a breakdown of the organisation of the unpublished material) and are available via the manuscripts search
• See a list of titles of books from Laing's personal library (Sp Coll Laing) available via the rare books search.

Note on organisation of Laing's personal library:
    Laing 1-200: books by Laing
    Laing 201-2435; f1-f42: general library (fiction and non-fiction)
    Laing f43-68: published articles and papers by Laing
    Laing f69-92: interviews with Laing
    Laing f93-134: articles about Laing (including book reviews)
    Laing f135-149: related subjects (for eg., Mary Barnes, Theodor Itten etc.)
    Laing f150-181: non Laing-related
    Laing f182: two boxes of tourist brochures/holiday ephemera
    Laing f183: two boxes of miscellaneous annual reports for various institutions
    Laing f184: seven boxes of single issues of journals
    Laing f185: one box of miscellaneous leaflets and ephemera
    Laing f186: boxes of music scores
    Laing Periodicals: short runs of journals