The Divided Self
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to be mad in a world that may itself be irrational? Published in 1960, R.D. Laing's The Divided Self presents a radical reimagining of mental illness, arguing that schizophrenia and other conditions dismissed as mere pathology are, in fact, intelligible responses to an unbearable social reality. Laing introduces the concept of ontological insecurity — a fractured sense of self so profound that the individual retreats inward, splitting their identity into fragments to survive a world that feels fundamentally threatening. Through vivid case studies and rigorous phenomenological analysis, he chronicles the inner logic of those whose minds have been labelled deviant, restoring their humanity with compassion and intellectual precision. Laing's work sits at a provocative crossroads between psychiatry, existentialist philosophy, and social critique, drawing on the ideas of Sartre, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard to construct a framework that challenged the medical establishment of its time. His prose is both clinically rigorous and startlingly empathetic, making The Divided Self not merely a psychiatric text but a profound meditation on alienation, identity, and what it means to be a person. Decades after its first publication, this landmark work continues to unsettle comfortable assumptions about sanity, conformity, and the fragile boundaries of the self — leaving the reader to wonder just who, in the end, is truly divided.
Author: R.D. Laing
Format: Paperback
Genre: Psychology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to be mad in a world that may itself be irrational? Published in 1960, R.D. Laing's The Divided Self presents a radical reimagining of mental illness, arguing that schizophrenia and other conditions dismissed as mere pathology are, in fact, intelligible responses to an unbearable social reality. Laing introduces the concept of ontological insecurity — a fractured sense of self so profound that the individual retreats inward, splitting their identity into fragments to survive a world that feels fundamentally threatening. Through vivid case studies and rigorous phenomenological analysis, he chronicles the inner logic of those whose minds have been labelled deviant, restoring their humanity with compassion and intellectual precision. Laing's work sits at a provocative crossroads between psychiatry, existentialist philosophy, and social critique, drawing on the ideas of Sartre, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard to construct a framework that challenged the medical establishment of its time. His prose is both clinically rigorous and startlingly empathetic, making The Divided Self not merely a psychiatric text but a profound meditation on alienation, identity, and what it means to be a person. Decades after its first publication, this landmark work continues to unsettle comfortable assumptions about sanity, conformity, and the fragile boundaries of the self — leaving the reader to wonder just who, in the end, is truly divided.