Talk:Peter Sedgwick

On psychiatry

The article says:

Sedgwick did not view mental illness being primarily as a product of social stress, although he was only too aware of concepts of alienation and existential explanations as the cause of schizophrenia and other conditions. He just dismissed these on the grounds that they did not fit his experience.

That last sentence looks like an attempted attack on Sedgwick. Does anyone have confirmation that this is true (or almost true)? --zenohockey (talk) 18:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Accurate characterization of Laing-critical writings?

Article makes it sound like he was critical of anti-psychiatry types (Laing, Goffman, etc.) *primarily* because their critiques left them open to right-wing attacks…from the little I've read about Sedgwick he was *directly* critical of these figures, apart from how their arguments could be (mis)used by other forces. (In any case wouldn't his criticisms have made more sense then if they had been made about the right's practice of distorting liberationist positions?)

I'd change it myself but I haven't read any original Sedgwick material myself (yet).Historian932 (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There was a typically funny Radio 3 talk in the late 1970s in which Sedgwick directly took Laing to task for his views on schizophrenia - head on, with no political reference. I hope the script survives somewhereCroy379 (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Biography

I met him in Liverpool in November 1958, the day before I reported for National Service, and as usual he unloaded a handful of pamphlets on me. My distinct impression was then, and for possibly some years later, he was lecturing at Liverpool University - there was a Private Eye report in the early 1960s that Liverpool University had been displeased by his suggestion in a passing article that contraceptive devices were turned out with a predetermined proportion of faulty items in order to maintain the proletariat in an inferior bargaining position. Presumably Liverpool University couldn't see the joke, but surely he did work there?94.193.114.164 (talk) 16:18, 26 May 2015 (UTC)