In this article, I set out to describe my 7-year apprenticeship with R. D. Laing in London, between 1973 and 1980, 4 of those year which comprised my living in one of Laing’s post-Kingsley Hall houses, Portland Road. My goal is to use the metaphor of friendship to explain how living in a house with no ostensible treatment or therapy can engender a healing experience for the people living in that house, many of whom would be diagnosed as schizophrenic if admitted to mental hospital. Though this particular example of this concept is located in a residential living situation, I believe that it holds much broader application, including individual psychotherapy.
