01283nam a2200193Ia 4500 20261029223111.0 260608s9999||||xx |||||||||||||| ||und|| 0140135375 23 157.282 LAI Laing,R. D. The Divided Self : An Existential study in Sanity and Madness / R.D. Laing London : Penguin Books ,1960 218p. Dr. Laing's first purpose is to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. In this, with case studies of schizophrenic patients, he succeeds brilliantly, but he does more: through a vision of sanity and madness as 'degrees of conjunction and disjunction between two persons where the one is sane by common consent' he offers a rich existential analysis of personal alienation. The outsider, estranged from himself and society, cannot experience either himself or others as 'real.' He invents a false self and with it he confronts both the outside world and his own despair. The disintegration of his real self keeps pace with the growing unreality of his false self until, in the extremes of his schizophrenic breakdown, the whole personality disintegrates. Sociology Psychology Psychoanalysis RBK 69048 69048 0 0 ddc 0 1 SNUL SNUL 2026-06-08 0 157.282 LAI G8375 2026-06-08 15:45:17 2026-06-08 RBK Prof. Romila Thapar's Collection