existential-phenomenology

An intellectual tradition focusing on human experience and existence, which Laing uses as the main framework for understanding madness in this work.

2 chapters across 1 book

The Divided Self (1960)R. D. Laing

Preamble

The 'Preamble' chapter of R. D. Laing's 'The Divided Self' introduces the book's aim to make madness, particularly schizoid and schizophrenic conditions, comprehensible through an existential and phenomenological lens. Laing emphasizes the experience of individuals estranged from themselves and society, developing a 'false self' as a coping mechanism, and situates his work as distinct from but indebted to existential philosophy and psychoanalysis. The chapter also outlines the scope and limitations of the study, acknowledging clinical observations and intellectual influences while clarifying what the book does not attempt to do.

CHAPTER I The existential-phenomenological foundations for a science of persons The term schizoid refers to an individual the totality of whose experience is split in two main ways: in the first place, there is a rent in his relation with his world and, in the second, there is a disruption of his relation with himself. Such a person is not able to experience himself ‘together with’ others or ‘at home in’ the world but, on the contrary, he experiences himself in despairing aloneness and isolation; moreover, he does not experience himself as a complete person but rather as ‘split’ in various ways, perhaps as a mind more or less tenuously linked to a body, as two or more selves, and so on. This book attempts an existential-phenomenological account of some schizoid and schizophrenic persons. Before beginning this account, however, it is necessary to compare this approach to that of formal clinical psychiatry and psychopathology. Existential phenomenology attempts to characterize the nature of a person’s experience of his world and himself. It is not so much an attempt to describe particular objects of his experience as to set all particular experiences within the context of his whole being-in-his-world. The mad things said and done by the schizo¬ phrenic will remain essentially a closed book if one does not understand their existential context. In describing one way of 15

This chapter establishes an existential-phenomenological framework for understanding schizoid and schizophrenic persons, emphasizing the split in their experience both with the world and with themselves. Laing critiques traditional clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis for their fragmented and isolating language, advocating instead for a holistic approach that sees persons as fundamentally 'being-in-the-world' in relation to others. He contrasts the perspectives of viewing a person as a whole being versus as an organism, arguing that only the former can adequately capture the lived experience of schizoid and schizophrenic individuals.