What do you think?
Rate this book
Self and Others
To withstand the pressures of conformity we must understand how insidiously they attack. To develop genuine, creative relationships we must be aware of a person's capacity to inhibit, control or liberate another.
In this study of the patterns of interaction between people r. Laing, author of The Divided Self, attempts to unravel some of the knots in which we unfailingly tie ourselves. Taking his examples both from literature and case material, he shows that every relationship implies definition of self by other and other by self and that if the self does not receive confirmation by the contacts with others, or if the attributions that others ascribe to it are contradictory, its position becomes untenable and it may break down.
Cover design by Germano Facetti
In this study of the patterns of interaction between people r. Laing, author of The Divided Self, attempts to unravel some of the knots in which we unfailingly tie ourselves. Taking his examples both from literature and case material, he shows that every relationship implies definition of self by other and other by self and that if the self does not receive confirmation by the contacts with others, or if the attributions that others ascribe to it are contradictory, its position becomes untenable and it may break down.
Cover design by Germano Facetti
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
29 people are currently reading
1511 people want to read
About the author
R.D. Laing
59 books523 followersRonald David Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness – in particular, the subjective experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder.
Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement although he rejected the label.
Laing was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement although he rejected the label.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 24, 2024
This is one of the most important books I've ever read. It's changed how I view myself, my relationships, and the world at large. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it's true. Although I'm a sane person (I swear I am)!, and the book gleans its data by studying the minds of psychotics, it's very revealing as to mental fantasy structures in general, and how understanding them can lead to personal and interpersonal healing. As such, I place it up there with the works of Adler and Kohut in its ability to help the modern person to come to an understanding about their own mind and the minds of others.
The book is so illuminating and empathic at the same time that I found myself forgiving others in my life who have wounded me. I also was able to understand words and actions of others that have haunted me for years, and to unpick their and my own fixed fantasy structures. Just the assertion that all individuals and groups have their own fantasy structures was an immense revelation to me, since we are taught that most groups (such as the family) are sane, and that something is wrong with us if we feel alienated from them.
There are essays on "Phantasy and Experience," "Presence and Elusion," "Complementary Identity," "Collusion," and "False and Untenable Positions," among others. Together they create a furiously intellectual and progressive (but direct and accessible) view of personality, identity, self in relations to others, and the various fantasy structures that govern the psyche of both the individual and the group. Highly recommended.
The book is so illuminating and empathic at the same time that I found myself forgiving others in my life who have wounded me. I also was able to understand words and actions of others that have haunted me for years, and to unpick their and my own fixed fantasy structures. Just the assertion that all individuals and groups have their own fantasy structures was an immense revelation to me, since we are taught that most groups (such as the family) are sane, and that something is wrong with us if we feel alienated from them.
There are essays on "Phantasy and Experience," "Presence and Elusion," "Complementary Identity," "Collusion," and "False and Untenable Positions," among others. Together they create a furiously intellectual and progressive (but direct and accessible) view of personality, identity, self in relations to others, and the various fantasy structures that govern the psyche of both the individual and the group. Highly recommended.
April 22, 2019
Ten, academic but accessible, essays dealing with interpersonal experience and interpersonal action. The subjects considered relate to unconscious pretence, phantasy and the effects of collusion and disconfirmation in interpersonal relationships. Despite being written in the sixties it deals with timeless issues, and is an unsettling disclosure on the methods employed to combat ontological insecurity and the games we play with ourselves that sustain false-selves through self-betrayal.
June 5, 2024
expanding on ideas of mental illness being more about faulty communication between individuals rather than about organic problems in the brain found in The Divided Self. real good stuff
August 28, 2015
This is not a review: I didn't rate this 5 star, implying relevance of Laing's conception of self and other in present day social sciences and/or psy disciplines. Laing's scholarship continues to fascinates me in the context of the social scientific debates of the 1960s and 1970s as well as the social movements of the time, implicating the psychiatric nosology, etc. Laing should be more acknowledged and his work further incorporated in social scientific syllabi. I would have totally benefitted from Laing's wealth of scholarship as my main source, had I been an academic in the sixties and seventies, which I wish was true....
April 21, 2019
It's been a while since I last read Laing, so I can't state definitively that this is his best work. What I can say is that I wholeheartedly recommend it. This is as good a place as any to start if you're not familiar with his work. And everyone should be.
December 19, 2012
In some aspects a typical product of the sixties, but still relevant. I liked the insights on pretending and evasion.
March 13, 2011
To me, this book reads more like a collection of essays on related topics rather than a coherent whole introducing a theory of human behavior. The topics are elusions, identity, collusions, attributions, phantasy, etc. and are illustrated with some "real" stories as well as with fragments from Sartre, Genet and Dostoyevsky. I am not sure that by reading "Self and Others" one can easily find an explanation of how people interact but instead one might become aware of many interesting questions.
December 22, 2013
Published on the heels of his first book, The Divided Self, Self and Others represents a continuation leading into Sanity, Madness and the Family, the most important of the three works. Having read them, one after the other, I think of them together.
September 9, 2014
First half was very hard read for someone who know little psychoanalyst terminology. The book though became better and better and provoked quite a lot of though and interest in studying psychoanalysis deeper.
September 1, 2024
THE CONTROVERSIAL PSYCHIATRIST LOOKS AT THE "PSYCHOTIC," etc.
Ronald David Laing (1927-1989) was a Scottish psychiatrist who was often considered part of the anti-psychiatry movement (although he rejected this characterization); he wrote many other books such as
Politics of Experience,' 'The politics of the family and other essays,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to the First 1961 Edition [revised edition, 1969], "I shall try to depict persons within a social system or 'nexus' of persons, in order to try to understand some of the ways in which each affects each person's experience of himself and of how interaction takes form. Each contributes to the other's fulfillment or destruction." (Pg. xi)
He begins by saying, "is unconscious phantasy a mode or a type of experience? If it is, it is with a difference. If not, what is it, if not a figment of imagination? The psychoanalytic thesis can be stated thus: it is not POSSIBLE to prove the existence of unconscious phantasy to the person who is immersed in it. Unconscious phantasy can be known to be phantasy only after the person's own emergence from it." (Pg. 3)
He asks, "Is it a contradiction in terms to speak of 'unconscious experience'? A person's experience comprises anything that 'he' or 'any part of him' is aware of, whether 'he' or every part of him is aware of every level of his awareness or not. His experiences are inner or outer; of his own body or of other person's bodies; real or unreal; private or shared. The psychoanalytic contention is that our desires present themselves to us in our experience, but we may not recognize them. This is one sense in which we are unconscious of our experience. We misconstrue it." (Pg. 8)
He observes, "Some 'psychotics' look on psychoanalysis as a relatively safe place to tell someone what they really think. They are prepared to play at being a patient and even to keep up the charade by PAYING the analyst, provided he does not 'cure' them. They are even prepared to pretend to be cured if it will look bad for him if he is having a run of people who do not seem to be getting better. Not an unreasonable contract." (Pg. 28)
He suggests, "the man-in-the-street takes a lot for granted: for instance, that he has a body which has an inside and an outside... The ordinary person does not reflect upon these basic elements of his being; he takes his way of experiencing himself and others to be 'true.' However, some people do not. They are often called schizoid. Still more, the schizophrenic does not take for granted his own person... he lacks the usual sense of personal unity, a sense of himself as the agent of his own actions rather than as a robot, a machine, a thing, and of being the author of his own perceptions, but rather feels that someone else is using his eyes, his ears, etc." (Pg. 35-36)
He argues, "The most significant theoretical and methodological development in the psychiatry of the last two decades is, in my view, the growing dissatisfaction with any theory or study of the individual which isolates him from his context. Efforts have been made from different angles to remedy this position." (Pg. 65) He asserts, "One basic function of genuinely analytical or existential therapy is the provision of a setting in which as little as possible impedes each person's capacity to discover his own self... A large part of the art of therapy is in the tact and lucidity with which the analyst points out the ways in which collusion maintains illusions or disguises delusions." (Pg. 105)
Laing is not the highly controversial and polarizing figure he once was; with the passage of time, one can more easily appreciate what he had to say.
Ronald David Laing (1927-1989) was a Scottish psychiatrist who was often considered part of the anti-psychiatry movement (although he rejected this characterization); he wrote many other books such as
Politics of Experience,' 'The politics of the family and other essays,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to the First 1961 Edition [revised edition, 1969], "I shall try to depict persons within a social system or 'nexus' of persons, in order to try to understand some of the ways in which each affects each person's experience of himself and of how interaction takes form. Each contributes to the other's fulfillment or destruction." (Pg. xi)
He begins by saying, "is unconscious phantasy a mode or a type of experience? If it is, it is with a difference. If not, what is it, if not a figment of imagination? The psychoanalytic thesis can be stated thus: it is not POSSIBLE to prove the existence of unconscious phantasy to the person who is immersed in it. Unconscious phantasy can be known to be phantasy only after the person's own emergence from it." (Pg. 3)
He asks, "Is it a contradiction in terms to speak of 'unconscious experience'? A person's experience comprises anything that 'he' or 'any part of him' is aware of, whether 'he' or every part of him is aware of every level of his awareness or not. His experiences are inner or outer; of his own body or of other person's bodies; real or unreal; private or shared. The psychoanalytic contention is that our desires present themselves to us in our experience, but we may not recognize them. This is one sense in which we are unconscious of our experience. We misconstrue it." (Pg. 8)
He observes, "Some 'psychotics' look on psychoanalysis as a relatively safe place to tell someone what they really think. They are prepared to play at being a patient and even to keep up the charade by PAYING the analyst, provided he does not 'cure' them. They are even prepared to pretend to be cured if it will look bad for him if he is having a run of people who do not seem to be getting better. Not an unreasonable contract." (Pg. 28)
He suggests, "the man-in-the-street takes a lot for granted: for instance, that he has a body which has an inside and an outside... The ordinary person does not reflect upon these basic elements of his being; he takes his way of experiencing himself and others to be 'true.' However, some people do not. They are often called schizoid. Still more, the schizophrenic does not take for granted his own person... he lacks the usual sense of personal unity, a sense of himself as the agent of his own actions rather than as a robot, a machine, a thing, and of being the author of his own perceptions, but rather feels that someone else is using his eyes, his ears, etc." (Pg. 35-36)
He argues, "The most significant theoretical and methodological development in the psychiatry of the last two decades is, in my view, the growing dissatisfaction with any theory or study of the individual which isolates him from his context. Efforts have been made from different angles to remedy this position." (Pg. 65) He asserts, "One basic function of genuinely analytical or existential therapy is the provision of a setting in which as little as possible impedes each person's capacity to discover his own self... A large part of the art of therapy is in the tact and lucidity with which the analyst points out the ways in which collusion maintains illusions or disguises delusions." (Pg. 105)
Laing is not the highly controversial and polarizing figure he once was; with the passage of time, one can more easily appreciate what he had to say.
May 8, 2022
Meno noto e meno rivoluzionario del primo libro di Laing, L’io diviso, ne costituisce una sorta di completamento. Se L’io diviso è dedicato all’aspetto intra-personale del vissuto schizofrenico, la seconda opera lainghiana si diffonde soprattutto sugli aspetti relazionali - su come lo schizofrenico venga messo dagli altri (o si metta o per reagire agli altri) in una posizione esistenziale insostenibile. Notevoli sono i ritratti clinici, ma anche il modo in cui Laing usa materiale letterario per trasformarlo in ritratti clinici (usando per esempio Genet, Sartre e Dostoevskij).
May 6, 2010
Despite being a psychologist, he has the novelist style of writing similar to Goffman. Very illuminating work!
April 29, 2019
Laing is as brilliant and nutty as I needed him to be!
February 8, 2020
Fascinating analysis. Really glad I found this one.
August 27, 2025
Boils down to: Object relations theory and No man is an island.
Highly intriguing on family systems and branches out into nomological networks to be researched later.
'Time is empty. It is as futile as it is inescapable. A false eternity, made out of all the time on one's hands which drags on eternally. It is an attempt to live outside time by living in a part of time, to live timelessly in the past, or in the future. The present is never realized.
The self of the other is eludedwhen the other is related to as the embodiment of phantasy. One pretends to accept the other ‘as he is’, but when one most thinks one is doing so, one most treats the other as embodied phantom ‘as if he or she were another person, and at the same time as if a private possession. In Winnicott's (1958) term, the other is treated as a ‘transitional object’. This is yet another pretence. Self recognizes in one sense, or on one level, the other as other, as a ‘person’, not as a ‘part-object’ or as a thing, but counterfeits the full acceptance of this. It is helpful to this end if the other will collude with one's elusion and illusions. Characteristically one becomes frightened and angry to discover the other not to be the embodiment of one's phantasy prototype of the other. Living in this way, one may not lack frequent illusionment, but is likely to be subject to frequent disillusions. Each other person encountered may be seen as an oasis in the desert of one's actual life, only to turn into a mirage on getting closer. The dilution of what is, with what is not, in this elusive confusion, has the effect not of potentiating either but of diluting each, and entails some degree of depersonalization and derealization, only partly recognized. In this case one lives in a peculiar limbo. In one's flights from and towards satisfaction one may have formed ‘inner’ bonds with others through their imagined presence to oneself, undreamed of by more easily satisfied people. But discontent with ‘mere’ imagination may make one dependent on others in the hope that they will embody one's imagination and help one to elude the frightening and sinister aspects of one's phantasy. The need to seek actual others rather than imaginary others to embody one's phantasy may cause one intense involvement with people and things outside oneself. One searches in actual others for the satisfaction that eludes one in imagination, and imagines all the time the satisfactions lacking in ‘reality’.
'Some people undoubtedly have a remarkable aptitude for keeping the other tied in knots. There are those who excel in tying knots and those who excel in being tied in knots. Tyer and tied are often both unconscious of how it is done, or even that it is being done at all. It is striking how difficult it is for the parties concerned to see what is happening. We must remember that part of the knot is not to see that it is a knot.'
'True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself, to actualize oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.
It is an achievement to realize one is not necessarily who others take one to be. Such awareness of discrepancy between self-identity, being-for-oneself, and being-for-others, is painful. There is a strong tendency to feel guilt, anxiety, anger, or doubt if self-attributions are disjunctive with attributions made about self by other, particularly when attributions are taken as injunctions.'
Highly intriguing on family systems and branches out into nomological networks to be researched later.
'Time is empty. It is as futile as it is inescapable. A false eternity, made out of all the time on one's hands which drags on eternally. It is an attempt to live outside time by living in a part of time, to live timelessly in the past, or in the future. The present is never realized.
The self of the other is eludedwhen the other is related to as the embodiment of phantasy. One pretends to accept the other ‘as he is’, but when one most thinks one is doing so, one most treats the other as embodied phantom ‘as if he or she were another person, and at the same time as if a private possession. In Winnicott's (1958) term, the other is treated as a ‘transitional object’. This is yet another pretence. Self recognizes in one sense, or on one level, the other as other, as a ‘person’, not as a ‘part-object’ or as a thing, but counterfeits the full acceptance of this. It is helpful to this end if the other will collude with one's elusion and illusions. Characteristically one becomes frightened and angry to discover the other not to be the embodiment of one's phantasy prototype of the other. Living in this way, one may not lack frequent illusionment, but is likely to be subject to frequent disillusions. Each other person encountered may be seen as an oasis in the desert of one's actual life, only to turn into a mirage on getting closer. The dilution of what is, with what is not, in this elusive confusion, has the effect not of potentiating either but of diluting each, and entails some degree of depersonalization and derealization, only partly recognized. In this case one lives in a peculiar limbo. In one's flights from and towards satisfaction one may have formed ‘inner’ bonds with others through their imagined presence to oneself, undreamed of by more easily satisfied people. But discontent with ‘mere’ imagination may make one dependent on others in the hope that they will embody one's imagination and help one to elude the frightening and sinister aspects of one's phantasy. The need to seek actual others rather than imaginary others to embody one's phantasy may cause one intense involvement with people and things outside oneself. One searches in actual others for the satisfaction that eludes one in imagination, and imagines all the time the satisfactions lacking in ‘reality’.
'Some people undoubtedly have a remarkable aptitude for keeping the other tied in knots. There are those who excel in tying knots and those who excel in being tied in knots. Tyer and tied are often both unconscious of how it is done, or even that it is being done at all. It is striking how difficult it is for the parties concerned to see what is happening. We must remember that part of the knot is not to see that it is a knot.'
'True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself, to actualize oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.
It is an achievement to realize one is not necessarily who others take one to be. Such awareness of discrepancy between self-identity, being-for-oneself, and being-for-others, is painful. There is a strong tendency to feel guilt, anxiety, anger, or doubt if self-attributions are disjunctive with attributions made about self by other, particularly when attributions are taken as injunctions.'
July 29, 2024
I quite enjoy reading psychology books, especially ones from the mid-twentieth century. I find their perspectives to often be unique relative to what I see today, though some “non-politically correct” writing is pretty common. Overall, this book was decent. There were some interesting points, but it was a bit of a struggle getting through this book (even though it was pretty short.
Positives:
He develops ideas about the implications of the fact that we can never know the mental state of another individual. He argues that this allows for a set of many interpersonal relationships between people (ex. how A sees himself, how B sees himself, how A sees B, how A thinks B sees him …). I found this discussion to be very interesting. I also enjoyed how Laing uses literary references to develop his points (ex. Pride and Prejudice scenes). Even though I hadn’t read any of the books previously, he provides enough of the text to get enough of an idea of the plot to understand his points.
A lot of the discussion had a pretty strong psychoanalytical bent. I enjoy reading about these perspectives, even if I don’t fully subscribe to them as a reasonable description of why people act the ways that they do. At times it feels like an overly-all-encompassing perspective that influences the descriptions of everything for the psychoanalyst.
Negatives:
I really didn’t enjoy the writing style. At times it felt overly dense and pedantic to an unnecessary extent. I understand that to some extent the pedantism is needed to get the point across exactly as desired, but at times the writing style was very unenjoyable for me. I found some of the clinical examples to be illuminating, and others unnecessary. Some of the essays were great, while I found others relatively uninteresting.
Overall, the book was a mix of good and bad with respect to the writing style and content. I took away enough interesting ideas and perspectives to warrant giving it 3 stars, but I didn’t really enjoy reading it. I am glad I read it, but will probably not be picking up many more Laing books.
Positives:
He develops ideas about the implications of the fact that we can never know the mental state of another individual. He argues that this allows for a set of many interpersonal relationships between people (ex. how A sees himself, how B sees himself, how A sees B, how A thinks B sees him …). I found this discussion to be very interesting. I also enjoyed how Laing uses literary references to develop his points (ex. Pride and Prejudice scenes). Even though I hadn’t read any of the books previously, he provides enough of the text to get enough of an idea of the plot to understand his points.
A lot of the discussion had a pretty strong psychoanalytical bent. I enjoy reading about these perspectives, even if I don’t fully subscribe to them as a reasonable description of why people act the ways that they do. At times it feels like an overly-all-encompassing perspective that influences the descriptions of everything for the psychoanalyst.
Negatives:
I really didn’t enjoy the writing style. At times it felt overly dense and pedantic to an unnecessary extent. I understand that to some extent the pedantism is needed to get the point across exactly as desired, but at times the writing style was very unenjoyable for me. I found some of the clinical examples to be illuminating, and others unnecessary. Some of the essays were great, while I found others relatively uninteresting.
Overall, the book was a mix of good and bad with respect to the writing style and content. I took away enough interesting ideas and perspectives to warrant giving it 3 stars, but I didn’t really enjoy reading it. I am glad I read it, but will probably not be picking up many more Laing books.
May 23, 2023
Çok anlaşılmaz bir dili var, okuyamadım.
Read
March 7, 20242nd half is particularly helpful, I love the literary analysis used to make concrete the psychoanalytic theories. Mostly elucidates dynamics, knots in social being (not a self-help book)
July 14, 2025
Presents some good ideas.
December 12, 2021
This is an excellent book, with very interesting arguments that might appeal to many readers with all sorts of interests, backgrounds or motivations. It was my first introduction to Laing's work and I am absolutely hooked. It's one of his more theoretical books, but his way of writing is the opposite of dry or confusing. He makes use of very illustrative examples, his reasoning is very intuitive to follow, the clarity of the writing and arguments is close to mathematical.
This short book gives the reader many tools to think more clearly about interpersonal interactions and dialogue, and about the observation or discussion of these interactions. It goes over a few concepts that bring the analysis to a higher order, that make it easy to take a step back to study a situation, instead of staying at a level that is unaware of itself.
It also gives a very convincing account of confusing, vague and overlapping definitions commonly used in psychoanalytic study and instead lists more useful and sturdy terms and language to facilitate serious and honest analysis.
This short book gives the reader many tools to think more clearly about interpersonal interactions and dialogue, and about the observation or discussion of these interactions. It goes over a few concepts that bring the analysis to a higher order, that make it easy to take a step back to study a situation, instead of staying at a level that is unaware of itself.
It also gives a very convincing account of confusing, vague and overlapping definitions commonly used in psychoanalytic study and instead lists more useful and sturdy terms and language to facilitate serious and honest analysis.
April 25, 2021
good book ... read a couple chapters while watching boring episodes of the sopranos season 6 like when carmella went to paris... all this shit spoke to me. i have spent most of my life stuck in unconscious fantasy. gratifying and troubling. some of it denser than it needs to be. other times weirdly loose and vulgar. between those last two comments, i can see why deleuze liked this guy.
October 26, 2022
Gotta love another R.D. Laing one!
Truly an ode to details and a very sensitive, intelligent perception of human behaviour and relationships (or "collusions" as he describes some, rather unhealthy types, of them).
If you enjoyed his "The Divided Self", you will also deeply appreciate this analytic approach of what defines the Self, and Others!
Truly an ode to details and a very sensitive, intelligent perception of human behaviour and relationships (or "collusions" as he describes some, rather unhealthy types, of them).
If you enjoyed his "The Divided Self", you will also deeply appreciate this analytic approach of what defines the Self, and Others!
Read
November 20, 2008Just like the current Rd Laing book i'm reading. At the time I like this one better.
August 20, 2020
The fact that this book was originally written in the 60's does not excuse the horribly sexist and twisted misconceptions of the author with regard to female sexuality.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews