David Cooper (psychiatrist)

David Graham Cooper (1931 in Cape Town, South Africa – 29 July 1986 in Paris, France) was a South African-born psychiatrist and theorist who was prominent in the anti-psychiatry movement.

Cooper graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1955. He moved to London, where he worked at several hospitals. From 1961 to 1965 he ran an experimental unit for young schizophrenics 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", he left the Philadelphia Association in the 1970s in a disagreement over its growing interest in spiritualism over politics. Cooper coined the term "anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry in 1971.

Cooper believed that madness and psychosis are the manifestation of a disparity between one's own 'true' identity and our social identity (the identity others give us and we internalise). Cooper's ultimate solution was through revolution. 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 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, although the term could easily describe the anti-psychiatrists' view of orthodox psychiatry, i.e., anti-psychic healing.

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