Laing s examination of the family structure of schizoid individuals revealed some common elements. Laing s analysis of the schizoid split examines the existential conditions of the ontologically insecure individual. These dimensions tend to be ignored in psychiatric theories since they are mostly concerned with organic explanations of mental disorder. Until chemists and geneticists see the focus within the context , and realize there is an interplay between chemistry and social interaction, we can t develop the theoretical speculation at a pure science level we must have. In The Divided Self reality is presented as a shared world of a common sense.
Reality is what sane people take it to be and sanity is defined in terms of common consent.
In cases where there is a radical scission between who I think I am and who you think I am, one of us will be labeled as insane. Laing s existentialism. Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis . Conflict and sociability in Hegel, Freud, and their followers. Dialogue with R.D. Laing .