R. D. Laing, The Divided Self

Daniel Burston (Duquesne University); Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow)
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R.D. Laing's first book,

The Divided Self

, was published in 1960. At the time of its publication, Laing was in his early thirties, and had just completed his psychoanalytic training. Initial sales were disappointing – only 1,600 copies in hardback. But by 1989, the year of his death,

The Divided Self

had sold 700,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone, and had been translated into more than thirty languages. As its enormous popularity indicates,

The Divided Self

was not merely a book for specialists. On the contrary, Laing's purpose in writing

The Divided Self

was to make the process of going mad intelligible to ordinary people. From the outset, Laing is quite critical of Freud's metapsychology, and his attempt to root psychoanalysis in the natural sciences. Instead of causal…

1936 words

Citation: Burston, Daniel, Gavin Miller. "The Divided Self". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16844, accessed 29 March 2024.]

16844 The Divided Self 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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