[1][2][3] Laing saw a means of releasing creativity[4] in long term psychiatric in-patients such as Angus McPhee (who did not speak for fifty years but created woven grass art),[5][6][7] and worked with long-term (including violent) prisoners in the Barlinnie Special Unit, Glasgow, Scotland, such as Jimmy Boyle[8] and Hugh Collins, both in prison for murder, who became sculptors.
"[8]Jimmy Boyle's wife, psychotherapist Sara Trevelyan who married him in prison, said "Joyce saw how the work of each individual could express their inner state of being.
"[8] She discovered, in Craig Dunain psychiatric hospital, Angus McPhee from South Uist, who suffered from schizophrenia and did not speak for fifty years but made 'art' works from natural materials, which he silently saw swept away with the autumn leaves, [11] or quietly burned when clearing the grounds as part of the 'farm ward'.
[5] In 2011/2012 artist Mike Inglis incorporated materials from Angus's work and life in a permanent Public Art wall installation in Inverness and refers to Joyce Laing in "Chasing the Ghost of Angus McPhee" supported by Creative Scotland and University of Edinburgh research grants, presented including a short video of her speaking about him, at the European Outsider Art Conference (2022).
[10] Some of the material she collected was being discarded as large psychiatric units were closed down and Laing was said to have 'rummaged in bins' to save the patients' work, not generally regarded as 'art' by many at the time, but valued by her as made by untrained artists, but a form of vital self-expression or 'compulsion'.