Chapter One: Being and Doing: Freedom
1 Freedom:
The First Condition of Action
...
In the first chapter we
established... that if negation comes into the world through human-reality,
the latter must be a being who can realize a nihilating rupture with the
world and with himself: and we established that the permanent possibility
of this rupture is the same as freedom. But on the other hand, we stated
that this permanent possibility of nihilating what I am in the form of
"having-been" implies for man a particular type of existence.
We were able then to determine by means of analyses like that of bad faith that human
reality is its own nothingness. For the
for-itself, to be is to
nihilate the in-itself
which it is.
...
To say that the for-itself has to be what it is... to say that in it
existence precedes and
conditions essence.. is..
to be aware that man is free. Indeed by the sole fact that I am conscious
of the causes which inspire my action, these causes are already
transcendent objects for my consciousness; they are outside. In vain shall
I seek to catch hold of them: I escape them by my very existence. I am
condemned to exist forever beyond my essence, beyond the causes and motives
of my act. I am condemned to be free. This means that no limits to my
freedom can be found except freedom itself or, if you prefer, that we are
not free to cease being free. (Sartre, J.P.
1943 p.439)
RONALD DAVID LAING
Extracts from The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and
Madness. (1960)
Ronald Laing was a psychiatrist. He was born 7.10.1927 and died 23.8.1989.
From 1951 to 1961 he worked at the Tavistock Clinic in London. His first
book, The Divided Self, was published by Tavistock in 1960.
Here, I reproduce extracts from The Divided Self which are chosen to
explain Laing's contention that
-
an existential-phenomenological psychology
is required for a valid study of the human mind
and how that relates to
his other contention, that:
- the apparently incomprehensible language of
madness is, in fact, comprehensible.
Some of these extracts have been re-
arranged, in an attempt to bring out the meaning more clearly. You may find
it useful to compare with the original. The page references are to the
Penguin edition (1965).
Chapter 1: The existential-phenomenological foundations for a science of
persons.
"Man's being (I shall use `being' subsequently to denote
simply all that a man is) can be seen from different points of view
and one or other aspect can be made the focus of study. In particular, man
can be seen as person or thing. Now, even the same thing, seen from
different points of view, gives rise to two entirely different
descriptions, and the descriptions give rise to two entirely different
theories, and the theories result in two entirely different sets of action.
The initial way we see a thing determines all our subsequent dealings with
it." (p.20)
"Now, if you are sitting opposite me, I can see you as another
person like myself; without you changing or doing anything differently, I
can now see you as a complex physical-chemical system, perhaps with its own
idiosyncrasies but chemical none the less for that; seen in this way, you
are no longer a person but an organism. Expressed in the language of
existential phenomenology, the other, as seen as an organism, is the object
of different intentional acts." (p.21)
"One's relationship to an organism is different from one's
relation to a person. Ones's description of the other as organism is ...
different from one's description of the other as person ... ;similarly,
one's theory of the other as organism is remote from any theory of the
other as person. One acts towards an organism differently from the way one
acts towards a person. The science of persons is the study of human beings
that begins from a relationship with the other as person and proceeds to an
account of the other still as person." (p.21)
"
For example, if one is listening to another person talking, one may either
(a) be studying verbal behaviour in terms of neural processes and the whole
apparatus of vocalizing, or (b) be trying to understand what he is saying.
In the later case, an explanation of verbal behaviour in terms of the
general nexus of organic changes that must be necessarily be going on as a
conditio sine qua non [indispensable condition] of his
verbalization, is no contribution to a possible understanding of what the
individual is saying." (pp 21-22)
"
the theory of man as person loses its way if it falls into an account of
man as a machine or man as an organismic system of it-processes.[p.23] ...
Physics and the other sciences of things must accord the science of persons
the right to be unbiased in a way that is true to its own field of study."
(p.24)
Chapter two: The existential-phenomenological foundations for the
understanding of psychosis.
"When I certify someone insane, I am not equivocating when I
write that he is of unsound mind, may be dangerous to himself and others,
and require care and attention in a mental hospital. However, at the same
time, I am also aware that, in my opinion, there are other people who are
regarded as sane, whose minds are as radically unsound, who may be equally
or more dangerous to themselves and others and whom society does not regard
as psychotic and fit persons to be in a madhouse. I am aware that the man
who is said to be deluded may be in his delusion telling me the truth, and
this in no equivocal or metaphorical sense, but quite literally, and that
the cracked mind of the schizophrenic may let in light which does
not enter the intact minds of many sane people whose minds are closed."
(p.27)
"The standard [psychiatric] texts contain the description of
the behaviour field that includes the psychiatrist. The behaviour of the
patient is to some extent a function of the behaviour of the psychiatrist
in the same behavioural field." (p.28)
"The clinical psychiatrist, wishing to be more `scientific' or
`objective', may propose to confine himself to the `objectively' observable
behaviour of the patient before him. The simplest reply to this is that it
is impossible. To see `signs' of `disease' is not to see neutrally. ...
We cannot help but see the person in one way or other and place our
constructions or interpretations on `his' behaviour, as soon as we are in a
relationship with him." (p.31)
[Laing is arguing that the approach that a doctor takes to a medical
disease is inadequate in psychiatry, because the relationship to a `thing'
(disease) is different to the relationship between peopležand psychiatry
requires the later approach.]
"The crux of the matter is that when one examines `a heart', or
even the whole man as an organism, one is not interested in the nature of
one's own personal feelings about him. (p.29)
[Laing thinks this is the wrong way to understand the schizophrenic person.
He gives an illustration to illustrate that there is another way to
interpret a `schizophrenics' `symptoms']
" ... this patient's behaviour can be seen in at least two ways
... One may see his behaviour as `signs' of a `disease'; one may see his
behaviour as expressive of his existence. The existential-phenomenological
construction is an inference about the way the other is feeling and acting.
(pp 30-31)
[The example is taken from the work of the German psychiatrist,
Emil
Kraepelin (1856-1926), who pioneered the classification of
mental disorder
on the basis of thousands of case studies.] Here is Kraepelin's (1905)
account to a lecture-room of his students of a patient showing the signs of
catatonic excitement:
"The patient I will show you today has almost to be carried
into the rooms, as he walks in a straddling fashion on the outside of his
feet. On coming in, he throws off his slippers, sings a hymn loudly, and
then cries twice (in English), `My father, my real father!' He is eighteen
years old, and a pupil of the Oberrealschule (higher-grade modern-side
school), tall, and rather strongly built, but with a pale complexion, on
which there is often a transient flush. The patient sits with his eyes
shut, and pays no attention to his surroundings. He does not look up even
when he is spoken to, but he answers beginning in a low voice, and
gradually screaming louder and louder. When asked where he is, he says,
`You want to know that too? I tell you who is being measured and is
measured and shall be measured. I know all that, and could tell you, but I
do not want to.' When asked his name, he screams, `What is your name? What
does he shut? He shuts his eyes. What does he hear? He does not understand;
he understands not. How? Who? Where? When? What does he mean? When I tell
him to look he does not look properly. You there, just look! What is it?
Why do you give me no answer? Are you getting impudent again? How can you
be so impudent? I'm coming! I'll show you! You don't whore for me. You
mustn't be smart either; you're an impudent, lousy fellow, such an
impudent, lousy fellow I've never met with. Is he beginning again? You
understand nothing at all, nothing at all; nothing at all does he
understand. If you follow now, he won't follow, will not follow. Are you
getting still more impudent? Are you getting impudent still more? How they
attend, they do attend,' and so on. At the end, he scolds in quite
inarticulate sounds."
Kraepelin notes here among other things the patient's `inaccessibility':
"Although he undoubtedly understands all the questions, he
has not given us a single piece of useful information. His talk was ...
only a series of disconnected sentences having no relation whatever to the
general situation." (pp 29-30)
[Laing disagrees. He thinks that Kraepelin's own approach is shaping his
vision in a specific way, and that there is another, better approach:]
"Now it seems clear that this patient's behaviour can be seen
in at least two ways ... One may see his behaviour as `signs' of a
`disease'; one may see his behaviour as expressive of his existence. The
existential-phenomenological construction is an inference about the way the
other is feeling and acting. What is the boy's experience of Kraepelin? He
seems to be tormented and desperate. What is he `about' in speaking and
acting in this way? He is objecting to being measured and tested. He wants
to be heard." (pp 30-31)
"Now there is no question that this patient is showing the
`signs' of catatonic excitement. The construction we put on this behaviour
will, however, depend on the relationship we establish with the patient ...
What does this patient seem to be doing? Surely he is carrying on a
dialogue between his own parodied version of Kraepelin, and his own defiant
rebelling self. `You want to know that too? I tell you who is being
measured and is measured and shall be measured. I know all that, and could
tell you, but I do not want to.' This seems to be plain enough talk.
Presumably he deeply resents this form of interrogation which is being
carried out before a lecture-room of students. He probably does not see
that it has to do with the things that must be deeply distressing him."
(p.30)
"Kraepelin asks about his name. the patient replies by an
exasperated outburst in which he is now saying what he feels is the
attitude implicit in Kraepelin's approach to him: What is your name? What
does he shut? He shuts his eyes. ... Why do you give me no answer? Are you
getting impudent again? You don't whore for me? (i.e. he feels that
Kraepelin is objecting because he is not prepared to prostitute himself
before the whole classroom of students), and so on ... such an impudent,
lousy fellow I've never met with. ... etc. (p.30)"
[The following quotations, from
The Divided Self,
introduce Laing's concept of
ontological
security, by which he just means being secure in ones own being. He
also
calls it, having a sense of being a whole person. Certain people in certain
families, he argues, do not develop feelings of ontological security, and
this can result in schizophrenia. This idea was developed much further in
Families of Schizophrenics (Laing and A. Esterson, 1964)]
Chapter 3: Ontological insecurity
"A man may have a sense of his presence in the world as a real,
alive, whole, and, in a temporal sense, a continuous person. As such, he
can live out into the world and meet others: a world and others experienced
as equally real, alive, whole, and continuous. Such a basically
ontologically secure person will encounter all the hazards of life
... from a centrally firm sense of his own and other people's reality and
identity." (p.39)
"This study is concerned with the issues involved where there
is the partial or almost complete absence of the assurances derived from an
existential position of what I shall call primary ontological security:
with anxieties and dangers that I shall suggest arise only in terms of
primary ontological insecurity; and with the consequent attempts to deal
with such anxieties and dangers." (p.39)
Chapter 11: The ghost of the weed garden: a study of a chronic
schizophrenic.
"In recent years, the concept of a `schizophrenogenic' mother
has been introduced. ... This concept ... can be stated in the following
terms: there may be some ways of being a mother that impeded rather than
facilitate ... any ... inborn tendency there may be in the child towards
achieving the primary developmental stages of ontological security. Not
only the mother but also the total family situation may impede rather than
facilitate the child's capacity to participate in a real shared world, as
self-with-other." (p.189)
"It is the thesis of this study that schizophrenia is a
possible outcome of a more than usual difficulty in being a whole person
with the other, and with not sharing the common-sense (i.e. the community
sense) way of experiencing oneself in the world."q (p.189)
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