David Cooper
| David Cooper | |
|---|---|
| Organization details | |
| Type | Psychiatrist and theorist |
| Orientation | Anti-psychiatry |
| Institutional context | |
| Affiliation | Independent |
| Relation to IPA | None |
| Operations | |
| Geographic scope | International |
| Publications | Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry (1967); The Death of the Family (1971) |
David Cooper (1931–1986) was a psychiatrist, theorist, and critic of institutional psychiatry best known for coining the term anti-psychiatry. Born in South Africa, he trained in psychiatry in England during the 1950s and became associated with the anti-psychiatry movement alongside R.D. Laing.[1] Cooper rejected traditional psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practices, emphasizing social, institutional, and economic forces in understanding mental distress, while offering a critique of psychoanalysis.[1]
Cooper's work challenged the boundaries between sanity and madness, the role of the family in psychic repression, and the institutional structures of mental health treatment. He participated in experimental communities like Villa 21 and co-founded the Philadelphia Association, influencing countercultural critiques of psychiatry in the 1960s and 1970s.[1]
History
Early Career and Experiments
Cooper trained in psychiatry in England in the 1950s, holding hospital appointments before becoming Senior Registrar at Shenley Hospital in Hertfordshire. In 1962, he initiated the Villa 21 experiment, a radical ward democracy for male adolescents and young men that extended beyond conventional therapeutic community models associated with Maxwell Jones. The project unsettled hospital authorities and was closed in 1966.[1]
In 1965, Cooper co-founded the Philadelphia Association with R.D. Laing and others, establishing a therapeutic community at Kingsley Hall in East London (1965–1970). He departed the organization in 1971, opposing its formal psychotherapy training program, which he viewed as a retreat from recognizing the political dimensions of distress.[1]
Later Years
Cooper underwent brief periods of personal psychoanalysis, including with Kleinian analyst Leslie Sohn, which he later criticized harshly. He left the National Health Service in 1966, practiced private psychotherapy briefly, and relocated to Argentina in 1972 to promote anti-psychiatry internationally. There, he experienced a period of personal madness, as recounted in his writings. By 1975, he had moved to Paris.[1]
Key Concepts and Theoretical Orientation
Cooper's thought integrated Marxist analysis with existential and phenomenological critiques, insisting on understanding symptoms through broader social, institutional, and economic contexts rather than solely individual psychology or family dynamics.[1] He rejected psychiatry and psychotherapy as normalizing forces, advocating instead for recognition of individual uniqueness and autonomy—what he termed a "witness" to one's experience.[1]
Central to his work was the death of the family, portrayed as the "ultimately perfected form of non-meeting," stifling authentic existential presence through stunted roles and false selves.[1] His critique of psychoanalysis highlighted its contractual limits—time, money, non-presence—as inducing repressive normalization, despite acknowledging insights from figures like Jacques Lacan.[2][1]
Publications
- Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry (1967): Details his transition from psychiatrist to anti-psychiatrist, critiquing hospitalization and sanity-madness distinctions.[1]
- The Death of the Family (1971): Attacks the nuclear family as a source of repression; aligns anti-psychiatry with sexual revolution.[1][3]
- The Grammar of Living (1976): Explores intersubjective relations and non-meeting in households.
- The Language of Madness (1980): Reflects on madness and critiques psycho-techniques.[2]