Personality Theory

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Personality Theory

• Chapter 10 Existentialism R.D. Laing

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An Introduction to Existentialism

• European existentialism grew out of the terrible
  threats to life experienced in WWII, and the
  growing interest and concern about the meaning of
  life.
• Views that represent a radical alternative to a
  science of personality.
• Phenomenal experience and the belief that humans
  can choose what they wish to be.
• Rejects the very idea of psychological
  determinism.

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• Major European existentialists include
• Ludwig Binswanger
• Medard Boss
• Viktor Frankl
• Their philosophical fathers
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Martin Heidegger
• Albert Camus
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Paul Tillich

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Ronald David Laing

• Laing was born in 1927 in a working class
  district of Glasgow
• An only child
• His father was an electrical engineer, his mother
  was an embittered housewife
• He led a contented but strict upbringing
• An avid reader, he took up Kierkegaard as a
  schoolboy.

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• In 1944 he obtained a scholarship to Glasgow
  University to study medicine
• He failed his exams and had to re-take them 6
  months later
• He went on to become a psychiatrist in the
  British Army (1951-3)
• Experiences as a hospital psychiatrist disturbed
  him.

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• He held hospital appointments and worked at the
  Tavistock Clinic in London (4 years of
  psychoanalysis at this time)
• Laing developed an innovative experiment in the
  treatment of schizophrenia (1965-71)
• At Kingsley Hall, doctors and patients lived
  together in a therapeutic community.

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• Studied yoga and meditation in Ceylon and India
• A biopolitician as well as psychiatrist in his
  last years.
• He died in 1989.
• Among Laings books
• The Divided Self (1960)
• Self and Others (1961)

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• Sanity, Madness and the Family (1964)
• The Politics of Experience and the Bird of
  Paradise (1967)
• Every university student knew about this book
• Knots (1970)
• Wisdom, Madness and Folly The Making of a
  Psychiatrist (1985)

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Emphases and Major Concepts

• Existential phenomenology characterizes the
  experience of peoples worlds and of themselves
• Experiences in the context of being-in-the-world.
• We cant use abstract, objective, clinical terms
  these are it-terms.
• Terrifying personal experiences such as
  schizophrenia cannot be understood outside the
  persons experience.

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• Ontological security versus ontological
  insecurity
• The ontologically insecure person is exposed to
  extreme anxiety that can take 3 forms
• Engulfment fear of loss of autonomy leads to
  isolation
• Implosion the person feels empty and fearful of
  reality exploding inward on him or her
• Petrification and depersonalization feeling
  empty, turned to stone not feeling oneself a
  person

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Implications

• Schizophrenia as a model for the distortion of
  experience
• Laing did not attribute a cause of schizophrenia.
• His concern was the experience of the
  schizophrenic person.

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• The disorder is a creative solution to an
  unendurable experience
• Not a good solution, but respect for the person
  and his experience is required.
• Achieving full-fledged being-in-the-world is a
  big challenge.
• Existentialists dont want to fool you.

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Research

• There really isnt any its against the
  existentialists religion.

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Existentialism in Perspective

• Its humanistic perspective, concern for meaning,
  and stress on personal responsibility are
  admirable.
• Phenomenology may help to understand individual
  experience.
• It is not personality theory.
• Existentialists disdain psychological causality.

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Take-Home Messages

• Existentialism arose out of the terror and doubt
  about the meaning of life brought by WWII.
• A phenomenological method
• Emphasis on individual experience
• Opposed to theory and determinism

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• Philosophical founders of the movement
• Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Camus, Sartre, Tillich
• R.D. Laing
• Born to a working-class Glasgow family in 1927
• A contented childhood
• Voracious reader
• Medical school at Glasgow University
• Army service as a psychiatrist

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• A succession of hospital psychiatrist positions,
  including the Tavistock Clinic in London
• Participant in a failed therapeutic experiment
  with schizophrenics
• A biopolitician for the rest of his career

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• Emphases and Major Concepts
• Existential phenomenology the nature of
  individual experience of the world and oneself
• No it-terms
• Ontological security and insecurity
• Engulfment, Implosion, and Petrification and
  depersonalization
• Schizophrenia and an unlivable world

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• Implications
• For Laing, its schizophrenic experience, not
  etiology
• A creative solution to unendurable experience
• Being-in-the-world aint easy
• No research by existentialists

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• Existentialism in perspective
• Commendable humanism, concern for finding
  meaning, stress on personal responsibility
• Not personality theory