Self and Others

"This book is an exploration of some aspects of the relations between persons. The first part examines different modes of experience as forms of relationships. In the second part, some key patterns of interaction are considered, especially those that characterize certain extreme forms of disturbance or breakdown of relationships. The author has drawn on diverse sources, on psychoanalysis, phenomenology, on American studies of families, and on the insights of drama and the novel. His study includes a detailed critique of a technical psychoanalytic paper on fantasy; a close examination of the experience of Raskolnikov [in Dostoyevsky's Crime and punishment] before his crime, and of his relations with his mother and sister; an analysis of aspects of Genet's play The Balcony, and a concise summary of the "double bind" theory. As in his other works, Dr. Laing here attempts to focus on specific facets of the problem, in the light of a theory that comprehends these facets within a non-fragmented vision of human relations. Only those who are specialists in the varieties of "theories" brought to bear on human relations can judge how difficult is this task. This is a thoroughly revised edition of a book originally published in 1962, but barely known in America at the time. This edition makes available one of R. D. Laing's major works, a book to be read alongside The Divided Self."--Dust jacket.