Self and Others

To withstand the pressures of conformity we must understand how insidiously they work.

To develop genuine, creative relationships we must be aware of a person’s capacity to inhibit, control or liberate another.

In this classic investigation into the patterns of interaction between people, Dr Laing attempts to unravel some of the knots in which we unfailingly tie ourselves. Taking his examples both from literature and case material, he shows that ‘every relationship implies definition of self by other and other by self’ and that if the self does not receive confirmation by its contacts with others, or if the attributions that others ascribe to it are contradictory, its position becomes untenable and it may break down.