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These books were originally published in 1960 and 1961 by Tavistock Publications in London. Laing's ideas have been known in this country for some time. It is therefore gratifying to have these important books published and easily available here. Since they first appeared in print, they have been analyzed, reviewed, shrugged off, and praised to the sky. This leaves the reviewer little to write about that has not been said.
What is so important, interesting, and novel about these books? In Laing's own words (Chapter 1, The Divided Self), “This book attempts an existential-phenomenological account of some schizoid and schizophrenic persons; … existential-phenomenology attempts to characterize the nature of a person's experience of his world and himself.”
For the longest time schizophrenia was classified into simple, paranoid, hebephrenic, and catatonic states. None of this nomenclature appears in these books. Laing sees a psychotic break primarily as a failure in communication. We do not understand cryptic remarks or neologisms of the psychotically disturbed person. We do not know where the processes of delusion, dehumanization, withdrawal, etc., started. We have evaluated persons on the basis of observed symptoms without trying to learn how a psychotic person sees and experiences himself and the world. Laing has been critical of conventional psychiatric practices. He has evolved a radical new approach that differs from conventional ones and includes a political meaning. To test his theories, Laing, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, established Kingsley Hall, a therapeutic community in London where doctors, staff, and patients live and work together.
Laing writes well. His style is simple and easily understood. He states directly in the first chapter of The Divided Self that the book is (also) intended for nonprofessional people who are familiar with or sympathetic to psychotic persons “but who have not encountered them as clinical material.” Both books are full of illum