Summary of this collaboration's Chapter 11 where they interview a patient

1. Notes on R D Laing and A Esterson
‘Sanity, Madness and the Family’ Chapter 11 The Lawsons
Agnes Lawson is in her 20’s and an inpatient with a diagnosis of
paranoid schizophrenia. She feels her parents do not want her at
home and her parents said she was very difficult to live with.
There are the parents and unmarried Agnes, and two married
siblings.
The authors conduct the interviews at this time. There are 14
hours of interview with 10 being tape recorded.
There had been attendance at OPD before Agnes’ admission, and
she had then expressed feelings that her father did not want her
at home and wanted her back in hospital. Her mother said that
she was perplexed by Agnes’ problem with her father.
Agnes was interviewed alone and was embarrassed at sexual
matters. She was sometimes uncertain and sought validation of
her ideas and perceptions. She was uncertain if her imaginings
were in fact real. These were imaginings of how people, in
particular men, thought of her. She was concerned about
masturbation and erotic imaginings.
The authors thought she was afraid of sexual feelings and
hostility from others.
She also said she was wary of people prying into her life which
she perceived as straightforward like Jesus.
There follow interviews with Agnes and her mother. Her aunt said
you only saw Agnes as ill when she was with her parents, she was
all right at other times. The mother says it is OK to have sexual
feelings provided you don’t do anything wrong. Agnes said there
are lots of girls with careers rather than getting married, but
she thought that sex was behind her troubles even though she
had been getting religious.
The mother is interviewed and says that Agnes has always kept
things from her father, and that she kept the embarrassing

2. masturbation from her, the mother, even though the mother
acknowledged she had seen Agnes masturbate as a child. The
mother says there is no reason for Agnes to think everybody is
against her. Agnes thought it was a slur when Mrs Lawson and her
sister were conversing without involving Agnes.
Agnes said that she often sensed atmospheres with people, but
really it was her imagination.
Mrs Lawson dismissed Agnes’ hallucinations as not worthy of
comment, also Agnes would be told by her mother that she had a
poor memory and that she had imagined something, before Mrs
Lawson would then confirm the event had indeed actually
happened. There was no evidence that Agnes had memory
problems.
Mr Lawson and Agnes were interviewed and he emphasised her
irritability. He appeared quite angry. He mentioned her church
going, sometimes with her mother, and that she mentioned Jesus
when she was irritable. He said there was something wrong with
Agnes or she wouldn’t be in hospital. Agnes had always been the
best treated of the three children, the ‘spoilt’ youngest child.
The authors state that in their opinion all the things that Mr
Lawson finds irritable, he puts down to illness.
Mr Lawson says all he wants for Agnes is that she can do a hard
day’s work and come home to watch TV or listen to the radio. But
she never kept a job, and they won’t give her a job coming from a
mental hospital - ‘these places.’ He said Agnes doesn’t have to
make friends with her parents, that’s just not necessary. Agnes
can get a fellow but he’d rather it wasn’t from this place - one in
the family was enough. She should do like he did - mix with lots of
people, even some uncouth people. He would never stand in Agnes’
way. He mentioned about the electrician who had been the source
of fantasising and hallucination for Agnes. She though she heard
the electrician talking to her in bed. Mr Lawson however
acknowledged that Agnes could be quiet and not mean any harm.

3. Agnes admitted she didn’t like being told anything, and that when
she had sometimes reacted to being corrected, this was because
she was not well.
Mr Lawson says Agnes is entitled to be well, but that it’s likely
she will be in an out of hospital for a long time, as many are. He
felt disappointed about that.
Mr and Mrs Lawson are interviewed. They say Agnes can be afraid
to mix and sometimes deliberately refuses to go out with them at
the last minute, just to be awkward. She doesn’t do that with
other people. She had been awkward since being ill and before
she had become ill she had just been irritable, mainly over being
corrected or being taught.
Agnes + parents. Agnes has feelings about the hospital and
getting well, her parents think the hospital should be able to get
Agnes well. The parents had an ambiguous attitude to having
Agnes back at home. They think Agnes’ illness has been caused by
imagining over men, relating to her sexuality. In conversations,
Agnes agreed with whatever her parents said, even contradictory
things.
Mrs Lawson: she disapproves of Agnes attending a social club for
ex-patients because it encouraged sexually loose behaviour, and
she thinks the hospital have encouraged Agnes back to work
before she is ready.
Agnes is interviewed alone, and is said to be clinically recovered.
She thinks sex and marriage and bringing boys home and how to
manage relationships is at the root of her problems. She thinks
that it is her imagining that people have a grudge against her, for
example because she lives in a council house. She had been
unwilling to share a towel in the bathroom with her father and
cleared away at table when he combed his hair, but now she did
not act so.
R D Laing says that they have made sense of Agnes as they have

4. with the other case studies by seeing the situation from her
viewpoint and theirs. This is beyond the standard psychiatric
interview. The standard interview would have noted the nonsense
from the patient, what is perceived by the process as nonsense.
Laing and Esterson must have had experience of, must have
known, what a psychiatrist would ask of his or her patients as a
matter of work routine. What they do, the way they approach
personal histories, is different from the standard psychiatric
procedure of the time. Perhaps it is more akin to formulation.