I did enjoy reading R.D Laing’s “The Divided Self.” I did not find it as inspirational to me personally as other works, such as those by Rollo May, however, Laing’s piece did provide some very intriguing insight. While it was not one of those “aha!” books for me, it certainly did provide a lot of fodder and fuel to write about in terms of a phenomenological approach to psychology.
There are some key definitions provided by Laing which I think are very pertinent to the context of the book in its entirety. Firstly, “The term schizoid refers to an individual the totality of whose experience is split in two main ways... there is a rent in his relation with his world and... there is a disruption of his relation with himself” (Laing, 17). Secondly, “Existential phenomenology becomes the attempt to reconstruct the patient’s way of being himself in his world, although, in the therapeutic relationship, the focus may be on the patient’s way of being-with-me” (Laing, 25). Next, “The self, therefore, is precluded from having a direct relationship with real things and real people” (Laing, 82). Then, “The false self arises in compliance with the intentions or expectations of the other...” (Laing, 98). Laing also writes that “... psychosis is sometimes simply the sudden removal of the veil of the false self, which had been serving to maintain an outer behavioural normality that may, long ago, have failed to be any reflection of the state of affairs in the secret self” (99-100). Laing also cites Tillich and Heidegger for two important references. Tillich - “Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being” (Laing, 111). Heidegger - “Guilt is the call of Being for itself in silence” (Laing, 132). Lastly, the real “meat-and-potatoes” of the work is “the schizoid individual is frequently tormented by the compulsive nature of his awareness of his own process” (Laing, 106).
I did take fondly to Laing’s phenomenological approach to schizoid, schizophrenia, and dissociative disorders. Right away, on page 23, Laing writes, “People who experience themselves as automata, as robots, as bits of machinery, or even as animals.. such persons are rightly regarded as crazy.” The experiential aspect of these issues comes into play shortly after as Laing asserts that “No one has schizophrenia, like having a cold. The patient has not “got” schizophrenia. He is schizophrenic” (Laing, 34). Thus we have a experiential-phenomenological basis for the issue at hand. “We can say that in the individual whose own being is secure in his primary experiential sense, relatedness with others is potentially gratifying; whereas the ontologically insecure person is preoccupied with preserving rather than gratifying himself” (Laing, 42).
Something that Laing hit on that I feel is very near to my own work is on page 65 where he writes that “In the absence of such basic security, life must, nevertheless, go on.” In a sense we are all dying, if not already dead. However, the very fact that you are presently conscious or at least in some state of presence (being or non-being) illuminates the will to continue onward in spite of one’s agonies. Laing also helped me better express my issue with Maslow’s self-actualization by stating that “The self can relate itself with immediacy to an object which is an object of its own imagination or memory but not to a real person” (Laing, 86). Laing then goes on to illustrate a point which I would tend to agree with; “If he does not exist objectively as well as subjectively, but has only a subjective identity, an identity-for-himself, he cannot be real” (Laing, 95).
I also liked Laing’s sentiments of other people leaving fragments of themselves embeded within our own being and how we may not like these parts of ourselves. “Such little fragments of others seem to get embedded in the individual’s behaviour as pieces of shrapnel in the body” (Laing, 105). “... he had not dared to admit this possibility to himself because it would have precipitated him into a violent conflict with all the values that had been inculcated into him and entirely disrupted his own idea of who he was” (Laing, 97).
The part of the book that I found most thought provoking was in the early-middle third of the book where Laing discusses a young man who has disassociated from his “true-self” in the sense that he goes about life constantly role playing different characters and speaking “largely in quotes.” I found this to be very intriguing because from my observation many great writers exude vicariouslives of fragments of themselves in the characters depicted in their writing.There is a nice conclusion towards the end of the book which, nevertheless, leaves the reader (as only great works can do) with more questions than answers. “This provides striking confirmation of Jung’s statement that the schizophrenic ceases to be schizophrenic when he meets someone by whom he feels understood” (Laing, 165). Lastly, Laing hints that there is a sort of depth-charging strategy to life in order to conquer non-being and fulfill our being. “If one could go deep into the depth of the dark earth one would discover ‘the bright gold’, or if one could get fathoms down one would discover ‘the pearl at the bottom of the sea’” (Laing, 205). However, this begs the question then, Mr. Laing, what measures do we take to begin this process of depth-charging our being? Furthermore, how are we to survive ourselves long enough that we can sustain and complete this journey?
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