David Graham Cooper (1931 – 29 July 1986) was a South African-born

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

and theorist who was prominent in the anti-psychiatry movement. Cooper graduated from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

in 1955. R.D. Laing claimed that Cooper underwent Soviet training to prepare him as an anti-apartheid communist revolutionary, but after completing his course he never returned to South Africa out of fear that the Bureau of State Security would eliminate him. He moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, where he worked at several hospitals. From 1961 to 1965, he ran an experimental unit for young people with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

called ''Villa 21'', which he saw as a revolutionary 'anti-hospital' and a prototype for the later Kingsley Hall Community. In 1965, he was involved with Laing and others in establishing the Philadelphia Association. An " existential

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

," he left the Philadelphia Association in the 1970s in a disagreement over its lack of political orientation. Cooper coined the term " anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book ''Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry'' in 1971. He also co-founded the Antiuniversity of London in February 1968.

Leading concepts

Cooper believed that madness and

psychosis In psychopathology, psychosis is a condition in which a person is unable to distinguish, in their experience of life, between what is and is not real. Examples of psychotic symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized or inco ...

are the manifestation of a disparity between one's own 'true' identity and our

social identity Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, or expressions that characterize a person or a group. Identity emerges during childhood as children start to comprehend their self-concept, and it remains a consistent ...

(the identity others give us and we internalise). Cooper's ultimate solution was through

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

. To this end, Cooper travelled to Argentina as he felt the country was rife with revolutionary potential. He later returned to England before moving to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

where he spent the last years of his life. Cooper coined the term anti-psychiatry (see below) to describe opposition and opposing methods to the orthodox psychiatry of the time. He coordinated the Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, held in London at The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm from 15 July to 30 July 1967. Participants included R. D. Laing,

Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...

and the Black Panthers' Stokely Carmichael.

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

was scheduled to appear but cancelled at the last moment. The term "anti-psychiatry" was first used by David Cooper in 1967. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Association, London.

Family and ''The Death of the Family''

Cooper describes how 'during the end of the writing of this book against the family, I went through a profound spiritual and bodily crisis....The people who sat with me and tended to me with immense kindliness and concern during the worst of this crisis were my brother Peter and sister-in-law Carol...a true family'. He had earlier described the need to break free from 'one's whole family past...in a way that is more personally effective than a simple aggressive rupture or crude acts of geographical separation'; as well as the kind of false

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...

which occurs when 'people are still very much in the net of the internal family (and often the external family too) and compulsively search for rather less restricting replica family systems'. The book may thus be seen as a self-reflexive attempt 'to illustrate the power of the internal family, the family that one can separate from over thousands of miles and yet still remain in its clutches and be strangled by those clutches'.

''The Language of Madness''

In 1967, 'David Cooper provided an introduction to

Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French historian of ideas and philosopher who was also an author, literary critic, political activist, and teacher. Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships be ...

's ''

Madness and Civilization ''Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason'' (, 1961)The original title was changed for the second edition of 1972 by Éditions Gallimard, revised and expanded, and replaced with the previous subtitle: "History of madne ...

'' which began "Madness has in our age become some sort of lost truth"' - a statement not atypical of 'a time which posterity now readily regards as half-crazed'. Continuing the same line of thought, by the end of the following decade, 'he elevated madness to the status of a liberatory force' in his last publication. Here are a few typical utterances from ''The Language of Madness'' (Cooper 1980): "Madness is permanent revolution in the life of a person...a deconstitution of oneself with the implicit promise of return to a more fully realized world"'.Kotowicz, ''Laing'' p. 116

Notes

Major works

*''Reason and Violence: a decade of Sartre's philosophy'', Tavistock (1964) – co-authored with R. D. Laing *''Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry'' (Ed.), Paladin (1967) *''The Dialectics of Liberation'' (Ed.), Penguin (1968) – Cooper's introduction can be read at th
Herbert Marcuse
website. *''The Death of the Family'', Penguin (1971) *''Grammar of Living'', Penguin (1974) * ''Qui Sont les Dissidents'', Galilee (1977) *''The Language of Madness'', Penguin (1978)

External links