R.D. Laing's first book,

, 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,

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

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

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 23 November 2024.]