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A review by sl0w_reader
The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness by R.D. Laing
4.0
As an early and historic example of thinking about the 'insane' or 'mental illness' in a different (not medicalised) way, Laing has done the world a great service in bringing ideas about the nature of human being from the world of existential philosophy together with his experience of 'schizophrenic' individuals in the context of their families.
If you work as a therapist, I would suggest this is a must-read, even if you take issue with Laing's ideas about schizophrenia. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, shouldn't read it, because it will upset them if they don't credit his viewpoint, and upset them even more if they do.
Among its flaws, it does get a little too caught up still with psychiatric concepts and speculation that aren't rooted in phenomenology, but he makes a very good attempt to bring the latter to bear on his case material. And in places he's a somewhat repetitive writer - but that also helps to solidify the ideas he's trying to get across.
Overall, in this book he sounds like someone you'd like to have at your side if your mind really took a wander off the beaten track - with his apparent capacity for patient and careful listening and fearless compassion. I imagine very few psychiatrists of his day would have had the time, courage or skills for that, and even less so nowadays in their hyper-pharmacological paradigm of trying to quickly anaesthetise mental and existential distress with pills.
If you work as a therapist, I would suggest this is a must-read, even if you take issue with Laing's ideas about schizophrenia. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, shouldn't read it, because it will upset them if they don't credit his viewpoint, and upset them even more if they do.
Among its flaws, it does get a little too caught up still with psychiatric concepts and speculation that aren't rooted in phenomenology, but he makes a very good attempt to bring the latter to bear on his case material. And in places he's a somewhat repetitive writer - but that also helps to solidify the ideas he's trying to get across.
Overall, in this book he sounds like someone you'd like to have at your side if your mind really took a wander off the beaten track - with his apparent capacity for patient and careful listening and fearless compassion. I imagine very few psychiatrists of his day would have had the time, courage or skills for that, and even less so nowadays in their hyper-pharmacological paradigm of trying to quickly anaesthetise mental and existential distress with pills.