This is a book written by a truly independent mind exploring mainly with his own original thought that permits the experience that developes with 'patients' unfold on its own. Originally written in 1956, it is nonetheless relatively absent of mindless psychiatric jargon designed to stop people from thinking and coming to their own conclusions. R. D. Laing will go on beyond this book in his future radical development that essentially puts in fundamental question the very purpose and meaning of psychiatry, but leaves behind, supposedly, some ideas that I find fascinating and maybe he developed later under other names. Specifically, his consideration of ontology leads directly to question the very nature of 'insanity'. The way he describes schizophrenia, paying only lip service to the POSSIBILITY of a chemical/genetic cause, is to all intents and purposes a clear exploration of minds taking the pathway of philosophy itself, specifically dealing with fundamental ontology, the nature of the real, the nature of the self, the nature, meaning, and importance of their own emotions, but doing so completely on their own, without educational preparation of any sort, and not even knowing what they are dealing with are the same questions serious philosophers tangle with in great difficulty. The result, then, would be like someone with no architectural training trying to build a twenty story building: chaos, confusion, and inevitably a crash. One key point to understanding Laing is his quote from Sartre at the beginning of one of his chapters to the effect that Sartre no longer believes in the existence of PSYCHOLOGY ITSELF any longer. Rather, that field is much more accurately handled by BIOGRAPHY!
Rating: 
Summary: A Stellar Book
Review: After reading this book, you might realize it is closer than you think, especially in terms of hiding your "true self" in "false selves". What this means is denying what you truly feel, think, want, etc. in order to make others happy. Of course, with a normal person, different "false selves" can be "put in their proper place", so to speak, according to the role the person is in. In a schizoid or schizophrenic person, the false self literally takes over everything with the true self basically hiding deep within the person. These topics are discussed at length with numerous examples. I gave it four rather than five stars because the examples tend to be a bit case-specific in my opinion, making it a little difficult to draw parallels with other cases.One of the key points to take from this book was given beautifully in one sentence from it: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities, that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities."
Rating:
Summary: Master and Slave
Review: Foucault wrote in madness and civilization: "The constitution of madness as a mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, affords the evidence of a broken dialogue.... In the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates with the madman."
Psychiatric dogma says that Schizophrenics are incapable of human relationships; that it is impossible to meaningfully dialogue with schizophrenics. Laing in this work develops an existential account of madness, which is in direct opposition to the modern dogma of psychiatry. He shows, with the aid of case studies, that madness should be viewed from the 'inside'; that is, people diagnosed as psychotic should be understood; a conversation/relationship should and can be developed. This is the very thing to be avoided according to the modern idea that the mentally ill are merely objects of 'scientific ' enquiry; patients to be diagnosed and treated.
Also developed in the book is the idea that public sanity is not identical with wisdom or truth. As Laing says early in the book " ... The cracked mind of the schizophrenic may let in light which does not enter the intact minds of many sane people whose minds are closed". This is not altogether new, Socrates saw "the superiority of heaven-sent madness over man-made sanity". The idea seems to have been lost in our current culture where the standards of sanity and reason are in large part intellectual constructions; formed by supposed 'experts' of the human condition or by the sloganistic and emotive words of public opinion devoid of all fixed meaning.
The book is informative and just great reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Confusion
Review: I read this book without having a good reason really, I saw it in the bookshop and decided it might be interesting. As it stands it was increadibly difficult to understand. Had it been written in the 18th or 19th century I may have understood it better, late 20th century again maybe I would have got it. But the period between the end of the 1st world war and the start of the 80s... I cant get into the mindset of it.
I understood and recognised in myself a lot of the mindsets of the "schizoid" in this book, yet I didn't relate or connect with it at all, which left me somewhat bewildered. The language used was too academic for me really, but I was severly sleep deprived when I read it. A further comment is that the worldveiw promoted by psychology is one I am extremely sceptical of.
It left me with many questions however, so in that respect it was a brilliant book, because any book, especially a "non-fiction" book should always leave the reader desperatly curious about the topic. On that front it did well.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: Laing's ability to listen and understand is legendary. I learned a great deal about how to "be" with others from reading this and other of Laing's books. It's too bad psychology/psychiatry has gone the route of total reliance on medication--what pill do you have for me to relieve me of despair--my own existential condition?
Rating: 
Summary: Very compassionate, not very therapeutic
Review: Laing's compassion for those currently mentally ill (and others), as found in this book and others by him, is powerful. It's very fortunate that he raised his voice (and wrote so well) about the coldness and at time inhumanity that can be found within psychiatry.
Existentialism may, in some hands, support healthy therapy but it can also serve, as it seems to in this book, as:
a) a largely empty explanatory system, i.e. a rich set of concepts that enable one to create a great story about what is going on with someone, but a story that leads nowhere outside of itself. Satre's "Saint Genet" seems such an application, an interesting framework perhaps for a "biography" but layered in fictitious play.
b) a false comfort system that encourages troubled people to see themselves as an important part of some global battle against alienation and, in Laing's version, toward ecstasy ... instead of facing real immediate needs.
Getting a job may be more important than ecstasy. Taking a pill may be wiser than considering one's "false self" or going further on some great voyage toward transcendence. True, Laing has acknowledged the value of pills and the possibility of genetic/biochemical causes, but, as seen in this book, that was a very tiny part of his concern. What he wanted, this overcoming of the false self, this ending of violence has turned out to be largely orthogonal to the needs of the psychotic, for many of whom the right medication and daily routine has enabled them to enter the mainstream of society productively. Whether existence precedes existence was of no consequence to these people in getting well; now that they are, they can decide to what extent existentialism and Laing's vision counts. My impression is that, except for the great contribution he has made in encouraging compassion to them, his analyses matter very little and rightly so. It's unfortunate that his great compassion (and writings on) got mixed in with his attempts to apply existentialist notions, which tend to be very complicated and lead to a system as dangerous as Freud's in its abuse of speculation masking as truth.
Kingsley Hall, as described by Laing himself in interviews, was a compassionate start at providing humane mental health treatment, but therapeutically a mess. Sartre is vastly less effective than some of the growing number of anti-psychotic medications and it does a great disservice to the many of the mentally ill to suggest otherwise. Despite some disclaimers, Laing, as in "The Divided Self" and "The Politics of Experience", has done just that. He witnessed some terrible medical practices and he recognized they were so and called attention to that, but then he opted for mind games like existentialism and knots instead of providing practical guidance. "The Divided Self" is great in some ways and, for a young man of 28, forgiveable.
Nonetheless, "The Divided Self" is a bad book for most anyone who is mentally troubled and it is a bad book for most anyone who will be dealing with anyone mentally troubled. Boring practical choices made day to day are infinintely more useful than existentialist analysis and fantasies of transcendence.
Rating:
Summary: an amazing look at mental illness
Review: R. D. Lang starts out this intriguing book with an introduction where he gives the following statement: "a little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside of her. That is a dellusion. 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 mean of the people whom the label 'phychotic' is affixed." Throughout the rest of the book Laing never stops taking into consideration not only the 'signs' of mental illness, but also what the mentally ill and feeling, thinking, and trying to say. Instead of making the mentally ill into a sub-human species, Laing, allows them to be fully human and in doing so revels more about mental illness than if he had stuck to ridged definitions and destinctions. Not only does he succeed in spreading light onto the many parts of their personalties, fears, and contingencies, but he also illuminates what it is to be a 'mentally sound' person in an unhealthy world.
More than being a book of psychology, THE DIVIDED SELF, is a book of philosophy; Laing often uses examples from the works of Sartre as well as other existential philosophers (Heidegger and Husserl) along with an unusual mix of literary influence from Kafka to Shakespear.
Although the book fails exactly where most people will exspect it to be strongest -- a clinical account of mental illness -- it makes up for its lack of medical facts and outdated information (it was orginally published in 1960) with its many wonderful insights. Laing is as much a psychologist as Frued -- however both of them do better outside of the technical arena, where, oddly enough, both of them try to hide their best philosphical insights behind technical jargon.
Rating:
Summary: They don't come much better than this
Review: r.d laing may be the greatest author i know of that can bring such a true understanding to schizophrenia. in "the divided self", laing introduces us to some knew--and old--theories on insanity. the majority of the book is more focused on the process of going insane, rather than the peak and consistance of it. in the most of the first case studies, we are introduced to existential nihilists and simply confused schizoids. some have slight hallucinations, while most are basically on the verge of delusions with their incomplete ideas about life in general. laing, and his patients in their own way, explain much to us about the process which pushes the human mind over the edge. in the last half of the book--a little less than half, actually--we take a trip into the full-blown psychotics. through these purely delusional, bizarre schizophrenics we learn much about life after "death" (once the human mind has taken itself over the edge and in a since has died). these patients, of course, are the most interesting. while this book gives hardly any theraputic approach for the reader, it is still one of the most mentally stimulating books you may ever own. the last case of this book--julie--is titled "the ghost of the weed garden". while julie is the perfect, complete hebephrenic to represent the outermost boundries of psychoses, she also takes on some characteristics of dissociative identity disorder--though so much disorganized behavior of clearly severly delusional nature she is presenting. at the end we are left with more personal and inspiring knowledge than most snobby moronic psychiatrists have today wih their alternative approaches. take notes on the patients messages for all of you seeking to use better therapy. i feel the patients words are just as much as helpful as laings. through hallucinations and dark delusions, this book is perfect for anyone interested in the studies of chronic schizophrenia.
Rating:
Summary: Laing's Best Work
Review: The Divided Self put R.D. Laing on the map as one of the most brilliant and controversial figures in psychiatry. Written around his 30th birthday in an age of post-Hiroshima and WWII angst, Laing's brilliance rings true as he crafted one of the greatest works in psychiatry and western philosophical thought.
Laing's pursuit in understanding mental illness as an existential and ontological problem was a antithesis and departure from conventional psychiatric thought at the time, and should've been awarded paradigm shifting status by serious thinkers on the subject of mental illness. Although The Divided Self is respected, it isn't respected enough. I strongly believe his challenge was so devastating, that many in the psychiatric community wanted to keep him on the sidelines for fear their own life's work would be turned upside down.
Laing possessed an uncanny and perhaps eery understanding of the world of schizophrenia, and his level of compassion and intellectual commitment and honesty is nearly unmatched. He is definitely one of the elite, and reading his works instead of reading about his works is a mind blowing education into the breadth and depth of an extraordinary and agile mind.
Rating:
Summary: Self-help, Political Critique, Philosophy, Existentialism.
Review: This book is a very clear and engaging introduction to the existential conception of the person. It uses the insights of Sartre, Heidegger and Hegel to reconsider those people generally called crazy, and shows that what is often called madness is better understood as meaningful gestures of communication from people who have been wrongly ignored. It is a great introduction to existentialism, it will help you understand yourself, it is a deep critique of the mental health profession, and it is a real pleasure to read. I often use it in courses in existentialism or intro to philosophy because of its clarity and because it shows the deep relevance of philosophy in general and existentialism in particular to everyday human life. This should be essential reading for everyone!
