The divided self : an existential study in sanity and madness / R. D. Laing.
By: Laing, R. D. (Ronald David).
Material type:
BookPublisher: London : Penguin, 1965Description: 218 p. ; 20 cm. + pbk.ISBN: 0140135375.Subject(s): Schizophrenia -- Case studies
| Schizoid personality -- Case studies | Existential psychology | Existential psychotherapyDDC classification: 616.89 | Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Lending | MTU Bishopstown Library Lending | 616.89 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00106248 |
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Dr. Laing's first purpose is to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. In this, with case studies of schizophrenic patients, he succeeds brilliantly, but he does more: through a vision of sanity and madness as 'degrees of conjunction and disjunction between two persons where the one is sane by common consent' he offers a rich existential analysis of personal alienation.
The outsider, estranged from himself and society, cannot experience either himself or others as 'real'. He invents a false self and with it he confronts both the outside world and his own despair. The disintegration of his real self keeps pace with the growing unreality of his false self until, in the extremes of schizophrenic breakdown, the whole personality disintegrates.
Bibliography: p[207]-210 - Includes index.
Part One -- The existential-phenomenological foundations for a science of persons -- The existential-phenomenological foundations for the understanding of psychosis -- Ontological insecurity -- Part Two -- The embodied and unembodied self -- The inner self in the schizoid condition -- The false-self system -- Self-consciousness -- The case of Peter -- Part Three -- Psychotic developments -- The self and the false self in a schizophrenic -- The ghost of the weed garden: a study of a chronic schizophrenic.
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Ronald David Laing, a prominent British psychoanalyst, won wide attention in the United States, especially among young people, for his questioning of many of the old concepts of what is "normal" and what is "insane" in a world that he sees as infinitely dangerous in the hands of "normal" people. Born and educated in Glasgow, Scotland, Laing questioned many of the basic assumptions of Western culture. Taking the role of social critic, he wrote in The Politics of Experience (1967): "A little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is a delusion. The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from "reality' than many of the people on whom the label "psychotic' is affixed."Much of Laing's work was in the field of schizophrenia. Philosophical and humanist in approach, he questioned many of the cut-and-dried classifications for the mentally ill, whom he regarded with great compassion; he looked beyond the "case" to the man or woman trying to come to grips with life in the broadest human context. He was a compelling writer of great literary skill who brought to his studies a worldview that reached far beyond the confines of his profession. Until his death, Laing continued to expand on his early themes, which are also evident in his poetry, interviews, and conversations with children.