The heart of the matter: R. D. Laing's enigmatic relationship with psychoanalysis.

Thompson, M. Guy

doi:10.1080/08873267.1999.9986898

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…For instance, many patients experienced childhoods in which they were deceived out of contact with their authentic experience due to parents who demanded that their children instead conform to their version of reality. Laing's therapeutic process, therefore, aimed to cultivate the relational conditions through which patients felt empowered to demystify and reclaim their personal truths rather than continue to split-off their true selves through falsity and self-concealment (Thompson, 2000). This was the main thesis of his analysis of schizoid and schizophrenic patients in The Divided Self.…”

Section: Reframing Psychopathology As Social Pathologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Schizoid Defense of the Closet Through the Existential–Phenomenology of R. D. Laing

Gupta

2016

Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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This article applies the existential-phenomenological analysis of schizoid persons in R. D. Laing's The Divided Self to the phenomenology of closeted gay individuals, as described by various autoethnographies and memoirs about the lived experience of being in the closet. It explores how schizoid and closeted gay individuals employ similar defenses and suffer similar traumas as they attempt to survive within a persecutory social world. The purpose of this comparison is to help psychologists gain understanding of what beingin-the-world is like for members of a marginalized population who lack a world in which it is safe to really be. Psychologists are thereby invited to question mainstream assumptions about clinical diagnoses and to consider reframing individual psychopathology as social pathology, particularly among patients whose psychic distress may be symptomatic of the daily trauma of trying to conform to hostile sociocultural contexts that enforce oppressive social norms.

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Section: Reframing Psychopathology As Social Pathologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Schizoid Defense of the Closet Through the Existential–Phenomenology of R. D. Laing

Gupta

2016

Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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“…Laing's criticism of psychoanalysis has made his work difficult for analysts to accept (Thompson, 1999). Psychoanalysts, even into the 1970s, held dear theories that Laing criticized and discarded.…”

Section: Psychoanalysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Michael Thompson (1996Thompson ( , 1997Thompson ( , 1998Thompson ( , 1999 had extensively studied Laing's relationship with psychoanalysis, including the reasons for his limited impact. Thompson (1999) traced Laing's apparent movement away from the psychoanalytic establishment, but his more probing analysis revealed an ingenious synthesis of the finest 20th-century Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis. Thompson found a deep commonality between Laing and Freud that distinguishes their virtues from the vulgar misrepresentations of both.…”

Section: A Scholarly Appraisalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thompson viewed Laing as a psychoanalyst in its best tradition and made the important point that Laing's phenomenological method and skepticism are of greater import in his work than the ideological content of existential philosophy. Thompson (1999) viewed contemporary psychoanalysis as verging on extinction and found Laing's work to be at one with the most vital forefront of contemporary psychoanalysis that holds its only hope for an authentic future. "Perhaps the day will come when Laing's contribution will finally receive the attention it deserves" (p. 77).…”

Section: A Scholarly Appraisalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A science of persons: Exploring the impact of R. D. Laing's The Divided Self on psychology.

Wertz¹,

Alcée²

2003

The Anatomy of Impact: What Makes the Great Works of Psychology Great.

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ter-informed dialogue with works that diverge from the dominant, mainstream approach. PSYCHOLOGY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE DIVIDED SELFAlthough the topic of Laing's (1960) book is schizophrenia, the focus is even more narrow and the ambition more broad. Laing presented a psychological study of one way that some people become "schizophrenic." He does not indicate what other ways involve, let alone suggest any universal description or etiology. Because Laing's greater aim was to propose and demonstrate a special way of researching the lives of people, his approach was not limited to "one way of becoming schizophrenic," to other forms of schizophrenia, or even to the broad field of psychopathology. It could be applied to all subject matter in psychology, for it provides the unique scientific foundation that in Laing's view psychology is lacking.By 1960, the existential-phenomenological approach used by Laing had a long and distinguished history in psychology, but it had only recently been introduced in the United States through difficult works that use philosophically derived language. Laing claimed that this approach makes possible the achievement of a most difficult goal, that of understanding "schizophrenics." Although volumes of studies have provided us with knowledge of their neurophysiology and brain anatomy, of their hereditary and social etiological factors, and of their demographics, these works have provided only information about the organism, decontextualized factors, and impersonal figures. One could master all this knowledge without being able to understand one single schizophrenic person. Understanding requires different methods, different concepts, and, moreover, a different kind of relationship with the people being studied.For Laing, a person is an original center of experience and of action in the world. We understand a person when we are able to grasp particular expressions, such as nonverbal conduct and speech, in the context of that individual's being-in-the-world. This means grasping how the person experiences and comports himself or herself with other people, how a given moment of a person's life follows from his or her past and aims to bring about an intended future. In schizophrenic persons, we must come to know the place of "hallucinations" and "delusions" in the overall context of the person's being-in-the-world.Laing asserted that we must empathically enter into the other person's life and grasp the meanings of situations for him or her. This work requires a special social-emotional attitude which, mincing no words, Laing called love. Love is the basic requirement of all research that aims to understand people, especially when it involves a person-to-person relationship. People more readily disclose their meaningful experiences when they feel genuinely cared

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The heart of the matter: R. D. Laing's enigmatic relationship with psychoanalysis.

Cited by 2 publications

References 18 publications

Exploring the Schizoid Defense of the Closet Through the Existential–Phenomenology of R. D. Laing

Exploring the Schizoid Defense of the Closet Through the Existential–Phenomenology of R. D. Laing

A science of persons: Exploring the impact of R. D. Laing's The Divided Self on psychology.

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