Laing is easier to read when the question, genre and edition of each text remain clear. His clinical descriptions, studies of relationships, philosophical summaries and later conversations do different kinds of work. This guide offers a route through the books examined in this collection, with starting points for readers interested in experience, relationships, psychotherapy or social criticism.
Begin with the question of understanding
For a first encounter, this guide recommends The Divided Self. Read the original preface and the first three chapters before moving to the clinical narratives. They establish Laing’s method and his account of ontological insecurity. The preface also limits the book’s scope: he is not supplying a comprehensive theory of schizophrenia or investigating its constitutional and organic aspects. [1]
The preface cautions against reading The Divided Self as a straightforward application of a philosophical system:
this study is not a direct application of any established existential philosophy.
R. D. Laing — The Divided Self, p. 9 (excerpt) [1]
Keep two questions separate as you read: what experience is Laing trying to describe, and what explanation does he offer for it? A compelling description can make a predicament intelligible without establishing why it arose. The later case narratives are selected and interpreted accounts, not unmediated access to their subjects.
The companion pages on existential phenomenology, ontological insecurity and the false-self system explain the vocabulary without replacing the argument of the book.
Move from the person to the relationship
Self and Others asks how experience and conduct are woven together between people. For a reader interested mainly in relationships, chapters 6–8 provide a useful route into complementary identity, confirmation and collusion. The earlier chapters examine phantasy, communication and pretence; returning to them helps clarify the assumptions behind the relational descriptions. This is a suggested reading route, rather than the book’s own order. [2]
The appendix makes the layers of perspective especially explicit. Someone’s view of another person and their belief about that person’s view of them are different matters. Reading these distinctions slowly is often more useful than trying to memorise every piece of notation. [2]
Use the separate articles on confirmation, collusion and attributions when you want a particular concept traced in more detail.
Read the family and social arguments with their scope in view
The Politics of the Family develops the distinction between an actual household and a relational structure carried in experience. Begin with “The Family and the ‘Family’”, paying attention to transformations, repeated scenarios and the difference between observing a pattern and asserting a cause. Laing explicitly distinguishes finding certain family systems from claiming that those systems cause schizophrenia. [3]
The Politics of Experience takes the argument into a wider critique of social life. Its early chapters address experience, psychotherapy and normality; “Us and Them” examines collective identity. The later chapters on schizophrenia and transcendental experience make stronger and more controversial proposals. Read the literary Bird of Paradise as a change of register, not as another clinical report. [4]
The essays can be read for the questions they raise while their explanatory claims are assessed separately. Meaning, cause and therapeutic benefit require different evidence. The guides to metanoia and Kingsley Hall help keep personal narratives, historical research and claims about outcomes distinct.
Approach the philosophical background next
Reason and Violence is a joint work with David Cooper about Sartre. Its introduction is jointly authored; Cooper wrote the first two chapters and Laing the third, on the Critique of Dialectical Reason. It should not be described as though every passage were Laing’s own argument. [5]
For readers primarily concerned with Laing, the book is most useful after an initial acquaintance with his writing on persons and groups. Its questions about action, history and collective life help explain the vocabulary of the later social arguments. A summary of Sartre remains a particular presentation of Sartre; the attribution matters.
Use the edition cited by the page
The preface to the 1969 second edition of Self and Others is explicit about revision:
This book has been extensively revised, without being changed in any fundamental way.
R. D. Laing — Self and Others (second edition), p. ix [2]
| Text | Edition used in this collection |
|---|---|
| The Divided Self | 1960 work; Pelican/Penguin 1970 reprint. |
| Self and Others | Revised second edition, Pantheon, 1969. The 1961 first edition is identified separately when cited. |
| The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise | 1967 work; Penguin 1970 reprint. |
| The Politics of the Family and Other Essays | Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 edition; its publication history records first publication in 1969. |
| Reason and Violence | Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 second edition; first published in 1964. |
| Mad to Be Normal | Bob Mullan’s edited conversations, Free Association Books, 1995. |
These details identify the copies used for references, rather than prescribing an edition to buy. Printed page numbers and PDF image numbers can differ. The references on each article state which is intended. Laing describes Self and Others as extensively revised in 1969, so matching its passages to the first edition requires more than looking for the same page number. [1] [6] [2] [4] [3] [5] [7]
Distinguish recollection from contemporary evidence
Mullan’s Mad to Be Normal records retrospective conversations, edited and published after Laing’s death. It is useful evidence of how Laing later presented his work, including his resistance to the anti-psychiatry label. A later recollection should be compared with the earlier text or event it describes, rather than allowed to settle its meaning automatically. [7]
The collection’s articles identify historical scholarship and participant accounts separately. For research beyond the published books, the University of Glasgow’s archive guide describes holdings that include correspondence, papers and recordings. An archive catalogue establishes what a collection contains; it is not evidence for the contents of an item that has not been examined. [8]
What this reading route does not cover
This is a guide to the texts examined here, not a complete bibliography. Detailed guides to Knots, Sanity, Madness and the Family, Interpersonal Perception and The Voice of Experience require their corresponding complete primary texts. Mentioning a book in a bibliography or secondary discussion is not equivalent to having studied it.
Return to the R. D. Laing overview to choose a route by book, concept, relationship or historical setting.
Continue reading
References and source notes
- Laing, R. D. (1960). The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. References use the Pelican edition, Penguin Books, 1970 reprint.Cited: preface to the original edition, pp. 9–10; chapters 1–3; p. 9; publication details.
- Laing, R. D. (1969). Self and Others. Revised second edition. Pantheon Books.Cited: preface to the second edition, pp. ix–x; contents; chapters 6–8; appendix, pp. 154–160; p. ix; publication details; preface to the second edition, pp. ix–x.
- Laing, R. D. (1971). The Politics of the Family and Other Essays. References use the Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 edition; first publication recorded as 1969.Cited: “The Family and the ‘Family’”, pp. 3–18; publication details.
- Laing, R. D. (1967). The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. Penguin Books, 1970 reprint.Cited: contents; chapters 1–7; “The Bird of Paradise”; publication details.
- Laing, R. D., and Cooper, D. G. (1964; second edition 1971). Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre’s Philosophy 1950–1960. References use the Routledge 1999 reprint of the 1971 edition. The introduction is jointly authored; Cooper wrote chapters 1–2 and Laing chapter 3.Cited: contents, p. 5; introduction, pp. 9–30; publication details. Online source
- Laing, R. D. (1961). The Self and Others: Further Studies in Sanity and Madness. Tavistock Publications. First edition.Cited: title page and publication details.
- Mullan, Bob (1995). Mad to Be Normal: Conversations with R. D. Laing. Free Association Books. Edited retrospective conversations; references use the printed page numbers.Cited: publication details; preface, pp. vii–ix.
- University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections. R. D. Laing Collection. Collection description, consulted 14 October 2026.Cited: collection description. Online source