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.

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This was heavy going at times and ended up being a frustrating mix of brilliant insights that made perfect sense and long sections I didn’t understand at all. That’s probably as much my fault as Laing’s! ( )

Librería 3. Estante 2

This was a good study of madness- particularly schizophrenia and schizoid personalities. The writing was fluid and the comparisons, references, and reflections very thoughtful and considerate. It allowed me to ruminate and explore the topic of mental illness from Laing's perspective and get a better handle on what he believed in and what he stood for. It was a meta-study, focusing on a few specific individuals, that ultimately led Laing to believe certain precepts (that he illustrated before and afterwards) when it came to his work.

Overall, a good book. 3.75! ( )

This is an absorbing introduction to schizophrenia from an existential and phenomenological point of view. That is, with an intent to understand the ways that people think and feel and experience the world who are heading towards schizophrenia, and who are schizophrenic. It is made clear that there is a spectrum of schizoid traits (ways of feeling and of viewing/responding mentally to the world) between well adjusted people and those clinically schizophrenic. Some people have schizoid world views and live a normal-appearing life for many years (by coping mechanisms and pretending to be how they view others to be), while for others these world views lead to progressively more unusual behaviour and thought patterns until they lose any coherence of thought and sense of self.

Firstly, R.D. Laing explains the main concepts required for a basic understanding of schizophrenia. One of the most important of these is “ontological security” - the degree to which we feel or don't feel confident of our existence (bodily or mentally), in the world, and also of the existence of the outside world itself, other selves, and the ability to differentiate between oneself, others, and the world. A baby is not ontologically secure when it is born as it does not have a sufficiently complex world view, but this, along with a sense of ontological security usually develops as it grow up. Hence there is a range of world views and levels of ontological security within the healthy population.
In many schizophrenics this lack of ontological security means that they feel vulnerable to destruction by becoming absorbed or engulfed or dissipated by the world or others, and so create one or more false personas as a defensive mechanism so that their true inner self remains safely insulated from the outside. This lack of security is often felt as a subconscious unease and anxiety when faced with particular situations, and can be heightened by certain environmental and familial factors. The creation of false selves can often progress to a feeling of separation of the body and self (due to the false persona becoming more strongly associated with the body), and a further loss of ontological security, resulting in an increase in severity of the condition.
This issue of ontological security is not really discussed with regard to the idealist or materialist philosophies that themselves place emphasis on certain aspects of reality, though the parallels are obvious, and would provide material enough for another book. As would the mind body dualism of Descartes, which though discussed only theoretically by many philosophers, is actually one of the main sources of ontological insecurity of some types of schizophrenics.
Laing presents several interesting case studies throughout the book, mainly from patients he has encountered. In these he tries to understand the patterns of thinking and upbringing that have caused people to develop their atypical world views.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in psychology, theory of mind, or philosophy. It is very accessible and humanising, and introduces what is probably one of the most interesting psychological conditions. ( )