The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness

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.

Author: R. D. Laing
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 08/30/1965
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.36lbs
Size: 7.78h x 5.12w x 0.57d
ISBN: 9780140135374
Revised Edition