I wonder how can one determine between false and true self, noone really can likely know their authentic selves when every type of living has some form of alienation. Cant this apply to even things like delayed gratification. I authentically want something now, but it is more socially acceptable and even beneficial to wait and deny myself.
the idea i got out of the book is that the individual shares the self - and its drives - with a false self, fulfilling true self needs through either fantasy or fantasy-like behaviors. compelling as a possible personality approach to addiction, etc.
Interesting book, will check it out sometime soon. Currently reading Freud’s Interpretation Of Dreams and it is actually pretty accessible. The Sickness Unto Death is a great book and I have read his other works like Either/Or which is quite long. Anyway, keep up the great work. I should get to Lacan eventually. Also I have schizoaffective disorder which is schizophrenia and a mood disorder the parts you mention on schizophrenia interested me.
My therapist used layman language to explain the false feeling system ( derived from trauma) vs authentic feeling system (true self ) in our body to understand my triggering state when I could not differentiate what my real feeling is. I feel this really resonates with what you discussed about Laing “s theory-- the divided self. One of my other friends said he has three voices in his head battling each other all the time. Very interested in this book. Thank you. 🙏
I chanced upon Kingsley Hall in East London and Ronnie Laing in September 1965 as a 20 year old American beatnik/proto-hippy India lover on his first wanderjahr experience. I was a perfect encounter to have at that time as I was recovering from several disturbing/inspiriting psychedelic experiences as well as trying to understand mystical experience in general and its relationship to madness. Kingsley Hall had been leased by the Philadelphia Association of which Laing was a member along with other psychotherapists, psychiatrists, writers and artists. I am a firm believer in serendipitous encounters in life. They have always worked for me but only when I make myself vulnerable to them happening.
Read it in the 70s when it was on the bookshelf at my parents home. I had read the penguin book of drugs ( no.really! ) and was intruiged when in the chapter on lsd someone who had previously struggled to read Laings book found it as familiar as ' the back of his hand' after taking the drug .
I came to this possibility in my own self assessment battling what is perceived as ADHD ...I don't know if this is a brain dysfunction or a actual function working overtime which could still be a dysfunction in a sense... the problem with my assessment is there were many signs present from a very young age that were very uncommon in the average person and into my adulthood there were some real head scratchers that made no sense at all but for perceived cognitive dysfunction and I was diagnosed as having adhd and most likely having it all through life... also, of open and fair note, as soon as I got meds (stimulants) I seem to feel very normal again where before I clearly was melting down and crashing functionally.... Its my belief that there is great dysfunction on how love is perceived... as being someone overly focused and deeply empathetic I ask questions to my self with a very open and unbiased mind... it was question about parents who kill their children and vice versa. In the particular case that kicked off this very curious wonder there was a mother who killed her entire family by poisoning all except a daughter who was a Co conspirator. They asked the girl in an interview at the end of documentary why she helped her mother and her only reply was "she understands me"
Very well done. Lovely graphics. I do wish you’d mentioned some of his literary references to Kafka and focus on schizoid position rather than simply schizophrenia and “mental illness”. Please pardon one last reflection, the initial spooky color thing detracts a bit from the mature and humanistic tone of your presentation.
