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The influential Scottish-born psychiatrist R D Laing established an innovative approach to alleviating psychological anguish when, in 1965, he co-founded the Philadelphia Association. The organisation, which still operates in London, is centred on a communal approach to wellbeing where people who are experiencing acute mental distress live together in a Philadelphia Association house, with routine visits from therapists. Influenced by existentialist philosophy and the anti-psychiatry movement, which characterises psychological difficulties as a personal struggle rather than an ‘illness’, the organisation offers an alternative to what its advocates view as ‘confrontational’ treatment methods and medical interventions. Through evocative stop-motion animations, the UK filmmaker Alex Widdowson draws on interviews with a current house therapist, a former house resident, and the UK author and cultural historian Mike Jay, to explore the thinking behind the organisation’s methodology and contextualise its legacy.
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Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
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Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
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Consciousness and altered states
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Wellbeing
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later
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War and peace
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Love and friendship
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Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
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History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
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