R. D. Laing’s Existential

R. D. LAING’S EXISTENTIAL
PHENOMENOLOGY

Prof. Sripati Ranganadha

Laiug was born on October 7,1927. He spent his boyhood in Glasgow, Scotland. He discovered that he was unwanted by his parents. It was a case of an unwanted child who was never loved.

In his midteens, he painfully witnessed the physical battles around the house hold. There was a continuous, pathetic strife between his father and grandfather. He was fed up with his father’s instructions to him all about “the facts of life” which is fraught with meaningless sex relations.

He joined the medical school in Glasgow and specialised in psychiatry and found the ideas and tools of Freudian psychoanalytic theory useful. He gained the impression that Medicine as a profession particularly psychiatry is sometimes coldly inhuman. His theoritical approach may be classed as a modified form of existential phenomenology. His emphasis is on “need for congruence between, feelings and behaviour”. He is considered sometimes a radical for he has rejected the idea of psychosis as abnormal. He maintains that the psychotic state is a different way of looking at reality.

He made significant contributions which include:

1. The Divided Self (1959) in which he expresses the first statement of his position.

2. The Politics of Experience (1967)

3. The Politics of Family (1969)

The substance of the first two books is that “madness” is artfully devised to make an insane situation livable. The third one particularly harps on the significance of interpersonal relationships in guiding the interpretation of reality of the individual. In fact, his concepts fit under the interpersonal model.

4. “Self and others” (1969) brings out his concept of how individuals feel themselves by the demands of others. They are encouraged not to be their true selves but rather to meet the expectations of others.

5. A semi-autobiographical account of some of his ideas has been provided in the Facts of
Life (1976).

He describes the normal world as a place where all of us are “bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world.

6. An account of the family interactions of his wife, daughter and son over a period of six years was published as Conversations with Adam and Natasha (1977).

His colleagues have carried forward some of his propositions including:

1. The Death of the Family (1970) by David Cooper. Cooper has also set forth his own criticisms with an acknowledgement to Laing in Psychiatry and Anti Psychiatry in 1961. In the same lines, Robert Boyers and Robert Orrill have brought out a collection of papers with the title R.D. Laing and Anti-Psychiatry (1971) which presents a bird’s eye view of the growing impact of Laing on mental health professions. Ross Speck and Carolyn Atteneave set forth an approach to family therapy largely influenced by the concept of Laing in Family Networks 1973.

[This section is heavily drawn from Christopher F. Monte Beneath The Mask An Introduction to Theories of Personality, New York: Holt, Rinehart And Winston, 1980 P 382-416.]

PERSONALITY: R. D. Laing’s views of personality unlike the psychoanalytic conception are a modified version of existential phenomenology which focuses not on the past but on the near future. Existentialism is here taken to be a name given to a number of similar philosophies. Similarly, phenomenology is a name given to a number of similar methodologies:

Laing has characterised children from the conception of birth to the period of intrauterine life. He suggested that “Certain physical and chemical patterns rhythmically established for the fetus during its mother’s pregnancy may produce after birth “resonances”, that is psychological analogs of the physiological patterns of life before birth”.¹

The chief issue, according to existential approach, in the development of ­personality is ontological insecurity. It is the feeling of insecurity threatened by non-being (death). In the individuals who succumb to ontological insecurity, there is much discrepancy between their behaviour and their experience.

Laing has described three modes of ontological insecurity in his first major work,

The Divided Self (1959).

The three modes are: Engulfment: Loss of identity.

Implosion: Vacuum of an Empty self, and

Pertification: Doubt of being alive.

ENGULFMENT: If the individuals want to maintain their identity, they have to struggle to preserve and foster their own existence through a minimal contact or interaction with another. Identity can be realised only in terms of the other. In other words, identity exists in the presence of a complementary personality. A woman, for instance, cannot be a mother without a child.² The appropriate strategy employed by persons fearing the sense of engulfment is to free themselves from their isolation and total aloofness.

The emotional entanglement will haunt the victims of bondage throughout their lives. The way out to untwain the knot of loss of identity is to emerge out from human bondage. To resist engulfment, one has to maintain identity (self identity), enhance favourable image (self image), and strive for self expression and self-­determination.

IMPLOSION: Desensitisation is achieved by eliciting a massive “flood” or implosion of anxiety. One feels empty as there is nothing inside. It means emptying the mind of thoughts due to insecurity. The emptiness has to be filled when the senses of the individuals will rush in from the external world and “obliterate all identity as gas will rush in and obliterate vacuum”.³ They would like to he alone with their own thoughts and feel uneasy in associating with others. They easily subject themselves to loss of interest, orientation and feel humourlessness. The feelings of aloneness pay the price of loss of their selfhood. They do not achieve the security for which they strive for.

One tries to get oneself inside what one is outside and vice-versa: the experiences (the inrush of this forming a compression) that one undergoes what Laing calls ‘implosion’. The insecure individuals experience this dread and assume as the vacuum and feel empty. These individuals unconsciously lack any striving for achievement, belittle their own capacity, do not make effort on their own accord, lack goal-centeredness, and abhor coersion or advice and yet do not want to remain independent. This cessation of striving leads to cynicism, mistrust and sometimes over complexity.

PERTIFICATION: Pertification is a terrible feeling of people who remain inactive or reduce to the state of lifelessness (deadness) without awareness. The people subject to pertification have the feeling that they transform themselves into a machine (mechanising of life) or robot and can be described by an outside observer as depersonalisation (loss of zest in life). The view of petrified person is that others may manipulate the self through indifference and thereby attempt to dehumanise him/her. The petrified person is frightened of being bored, uninterested and indifferent towards others - a feeling totally determined. Hopelessness and loss of feeling of individuality sets in. Erich Fromm shares similar views of R. D. Laing. Fromm believes that the automation conformist experiences. The loss of self and its substitution by a pseudo self leave the individual in an intense state of insecurity. He is obsessed by doubt, since being essentially a reflex of other people’s expectation of him, he has in a measure lost his identity. In order to overcome the panic resulting from such loss of identity by continuous approval and recognition by others. He does not know who he is, atleast the others will know-if he acts according to their expectations; if they know, he will know too, if he only takes their word for it.^3A

ESSENCE OF EXISTENTIALISM: A movement known as existentialism came into prominence in Europe after the World War II and then moved into the United States. The thrust of the movement was due to the French resistance to the German occupation. This movement is based on the doctrine that man forms his essence in the course of life he chooses to lead. This doctrine emphasises that the responsibility of man for making his own nature. Distrators consider this movement as a subversive one “tending to degrade human reason, obscure essence and substance, and enthrone naked individualism and subjectivism”. ⁴

Many American psychologists viewed in early fifties that psychology had lost its glow and grip of the individual as well as human values because it laid too much emphasis on contemporary behaviourism. The basic set of values such as freedom, self-­respect, honesty, pleasure, obedience, justice and equality along with perceptions and preferences take shape in the process of socialisation involving the family and the society. These values will influence the human behaviour. Thus existentialism is a concept or view of people that stresses the responsibility of the individual for becoming the kind of person he/she should be.

BEHAVIOURISM: Behavioural psychology investigates only the physical, measurable and objective behaviour of individual and lays stress on deterministic and mechanistic view of man, whereas, existentialism attempts to understand the human condition as it manifests itself in our concrete lived situations which include not only the physical characteristics such as the people and places involved, but also all our moments of joy, absurdity, and indifference as well as the freedom we associate therein. The death of a dear and near one, for instance, need not end in unhappiness, but in sorrow. Nevertheless, the pangs of sorrow fade with time. If one’s relation with the affectionately intimate one who is no more was exceedingly cordial, there is no reason for retrospective reproach as the very memory and thought of affectionate intimacy will live and linger on for ever. “Remembering is a dream that comes in waves”. (Helga Sandburg, ...... where love begins,) It is, so to say, “the lived situations replay the memorable past records”. ^4A Time flies. Memories do not. This thought process is the basis of all our feelings, emotions, and desires. Thoughts are much powerful than actions since they are the seeds of the same. It is through this faculty (mental conditioning) in an instant, that we can relive the past experience, generate happiness or sadness. Experience is a personal and private matter. In fact, we play a movie in our mind in which we see ourselves meeting the score we desire.

Carl Rogers interprets experience as the fundamental psychological reality. As Rogers enunciated this proposition: “Every individual exists in a continually changing world experience of which he is the centre”. ⁵ Something takes place in a real-life situation. It is so to say in vivo.

When action replaces our thoughts, these thoughts lead us into experience. Publius Syrus observes: “Good thoughts even if they are forgotten, do not perish”. The Internal thought processes give rise to self-awareness, a consciousness that he/she is, which eventually promotes knowledge of the self as a living, thinking, judging, being.

VALUE SYSTEM: The dominant values of existentialism are qualities of life, non conforming, seeking autonomy and loyalty to self. These values are secular and universal in nature. Existential values seek a high tolerance for ambiguity and individuals with differing values.

Existentialism seems to offer a means for humanistically oriented philosophy. This human orientation stresses quality of life rather than material level of living. Our primary thought should be for the dignity of the individuals and for the quality of life. In fact, the quality of life shares with ancient cultures such as wisdom, humility, modesty, foresight, courage, truth, compassion, justice, non-violence, respect and the like. Our present material management derives its clout through: “political domain tending to posses political prowess, financial capacity, and military strength” and thereby miserably enhances the material level of living.

Many of our present decisions and actions result from the value system. As we are aware, every social and moral order exist not only external to the individual but also lies within the individual: The internal moral order rests on the human capacity for self-judgement. As such, self awareness is the prerequisite for moral and value based judgements. As mediator of the internal order, self-awareness determines the means of right and wrong. This ultimately leads to the formation of value system which is a ranking of individual values according to our relative importance.

Humanistic psychology unlike contemporary behaviourism emphasises man’s capacity for goodness, creativity and freedom. It construes man as a spiritual and rational, purposeful and autonomous being. He has a higher nature and strives for meaningful existence and well lived, healthy life. This is the part of his essence.

LOYALTY TO SELF: The chief characteristics of such people mentioned above are their increased trust in their ownself. They feel free that they will prove competent to meet and challenge and regulate their behaviour as the situation arises. They are generally characterised by independence and self trust.

EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE: Existentialism, a combination of philosophy and humanities is based on the analysis of existence of being. The basic theme is the existence of human beings which is given but what people make or mar is left to them. This is referred to as existence (that one is) and essence (what one is). The individual embarks on the processes of living to enhance his/her being, to expand his/her knowledge of self and others and to operationalise his/her personality in any activity he/she undertakes.

Existence is never static and is in constant process of becoming something new. Mathew Arnold observes: not merely “to be” but also “to become” so that each tomorrow finds an individual farther than to-day. Becoming (action) implies direction and continuity can be broken. Being-in-becoming stresses self-reliance, self-realisation and development of all aspects of the self on integrated whole.

CONTRIBUTIONS: Existentialism has been described as a somewhat unsystematic system of philosophy. It is neither scientific nor behavioural oriented science. It emphasises the living immediacy of experience as the individual lives it. There is also a stress on subjective experience as the primary aspect in the study of human nature. As Maslow observes it as “direct, intimate experiential knowing”. The psycho­analysis is concerned about the past while the existentialists give importance to here­ and-now. “Live in the present. Don’t look except to learn. Don’t look ahead except to plan”. Take care of the present and the future will take care of it self is the pointing effect of existentialists.

Its basic concepts stem from the writings of the philosophers like Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Schopenhauser. The well known philosophers who were associated with existentialism include Martin Heideggar, Martin Buber, Jean Sartre and Albert Camus. The theologian Paul Tillich and the psychologist Rollow May of the United States have made tremendous contributions to the development of existential thought. Franz Kafka, Gabrill Marcel and Marlean Ponty have been identified with the modern existentialist movement.

DASEINANALYSE: According to Rollow May, the ‘existential approach is the endeavour to understand the nature of man who does the experiencing and to whom the experiences happen. ⁶ Existentialism means concentrating on the existing person. It is the emphasis on the human being as he/she is emerging and becoming. The word “existence” comes from the root ex-sistere meaning literally to “stand out, emerge”. ⁷ Existentialism is pertaining to existence and relating to existing.

Ludwig Bigswanger, Medard Boss, Rallo May and other existentialists employ German word Dasein for this aspect of existence of man whose rare privilege is for self-awareness and is conscious about himself. Dasein may be translated into English literally as “being” (Sein) and “there” (da). Dasein is thought of as a process of continual development of growth toward fulfillment (fruition of one’s capabilities). The literary works of existentialism insist on actions as the determining things.

For the existentialists Dasein indicates a dynamic state, becoming, a continual process-the activity of being something not yet realised. They are concerned with “What is of importance in man is being - in both mind and body as an inseparable amalgam of physical and spiritual”. Existentialists view this approach as Daseinanalyse. Psychoanalysis is the study of human nature connecting between mental states and physical processes. This is referred to as “holistic” view of human beings in an interpersonal setting.

MODES BEING: According to existentialists, man is associated and interrelated with his world. Man implies his world and the world implies him.....”there is neither without the other and each is understandable only in terms of the other”. The existentialists have refined their concepts of world by distinguishing three modes of world each person embodies as being-in-the-world.

1. UMWELT is literally translated as “World around”. It embraces the biological drives, needs and instincts of the individual. Umwelt roughly corresponds to environment when we consider it alone.

2. MITWELT is literally the “with world”, the world of being-with others, one’s fellowmen. It is nothing to do with the concept of group behaviour. It is the world of others, of relationships with one’s fellow beings.

EIGENWELT or “own world” is the mode of relationship to one’s self. “It is a grasping of what something is in the world........” It is one’s subjective experience of inner and outer reality. The three modes of world are experienced simultaneously. In brief, this is the meaning of phenomenological method which the existentialists have adopted. Laing lays emphasis on the last two modes, namely Mitwelt and Eigenwelt.

PHENOMENOLOGY: “Phenomenology” is derived from a Greek root phainesthai meaning “to appear: as it appears. ⁹ Phenomenology is rather introspection which is taken to mean a combination of experience and perception. It is the study of unanalysed experience and concerns with immediate sensory experience of the individual and the meaning derived from it. The study of personality emphasises the subjective experience and the individuals and their personal view of the world.

According to the existentialists, phenomenology is said to be unprocessed, unvanished experiences of raw data of existence. It is almost a theoretical. In order to observe the world, one must give up the theoretical perceptions. The very experience of one’s self constitutes the existing, living human being. Phenomenology is thought of as the real individual experiences without alterations by strategies, “unshaped by theoretical predictions and unhampered by technical verbalisations”. One has to view it as real, valid and essential for understanding behaviour. This study is generally concerned with how the individuals perceive and interpret events. We are the product of our own thinking. It focuses on the positive nature of man. What we sow so shall we reap. No more than the quality of our thoughts.

TENETS: The main tenet is that “man is what he makes of himself and is not predestined by a God, or by society or by biology.” ¹⁰

Man has the freedom to make major choice and to assume responsibility for his own existence. He is not a ready-made machine. Existentialists do not consider individuals has just objects in nature but as, indicated earlier, they are viewed to be as having existence with the world and the world in turn has existence with the individual. Thus the world and the individual co-constitute with each other. The traditional psychology views the individuals and their entities.

The basic tenet as well as the phenomenological approach to personality is that human beings are endowed with choice, self-direction, freedom and courage. Since there is no cause and effect relationships in human behaviour, each person is responsible for his/her existence. The individual has complete freedom of choice. As Sartre put it: “I am my choices”. According to Morris (1966) (Morris, M.G. Psychological Miscarriage: an end to mother love. Trans-action 1966, 3(2), 8-13) human beings are said to be the choosing agents in the sense that they are unable to avoid choosing their way through life. They are also free agents in the sense that they have freedom to set the goals of their own lives. They are subject to “individual will” and any external law restricting their freedom is invalid and unjust. If anyone lets outside forces determine his/her choice, he/she is contemptible. They are responsible agents in the sense, that they are personally accountable for their free choices. As such, they are endowed with personal freedom, personal decision, and personal commitment. If a man feels responsible and free, there is no need for God in his life. Kierkegarrd based his reasoning on “faith, knowledge, thought and reality”. His “razor edge decision” of human free will which determines man’s personal relation to God is analysed in “Enten-Eller” (Either-or 1843) (C. Reader’s Encyclopediaed by Rose Benet.) Each person is responsible for his/her existence. What each of us makes our existence is up to us. Life is what you make it. H. P. Blavatsky observes...“man is himself his own saviour as his own destroyer”.

This does not mean necessarily that having freedom to choose amounts to all the choices we make will be wise ones. If this could be, people would not be afflicted with anxiety, boredom, guilt, alienation, misery phobias, delusions and such self-imposed tensions and neurotic symptoms. One has to make life more meaningful by the acceptance of reality as a “Value-loaded perception”. This has no meaning without being experiencing it. If this and experience coincide, they really offer us a basis of trust, stability and faith.

AGONY SELF FULFILMENT: The above oxymoran epithet requires the courage to stand on one’s own legs for finding satisfying values. The freedom to shape one’s existence (essence) amounts to both agony and glory. It needs courage to seek and follow new paths providing immense possibilities for self-fulfilment.

Existentialists view the person as on going, changing and continually striving toward a future state of self-fulfilment. Some people lack courage and do not want their essence to be left up to them. They seek external agency such as religion or Godman to advise them on what to believe and how to act. Sartre goes to such an extent to reject the idea of God where man has to depend upon Him. This dependence deprives the individuals from new possibilities for being, the element of experience. Thus the individual ends up with an aimless, purposeless or wasted life. (James C. Coleman, Abnormal Psychology and Modem Life, Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1976, P.71)

VALUE, OBLIGATION AND ANXIETY: The central theme consists of the concepts dealing with meaning, value and obligation. The will-to-meaning is taken to be basic to human nature seeking satisfying values by which one can live. This naturally differs with each individually as well as of individual opinion. Each one of us has to find his/her own pattern of values and decide the meaning of his/her life. Existentalism places a high premimum on one’s obligation towards others. The central consideration is not what one can get out of life but what one can contribute to it. Our lives will be fulfilling only if we dedicate ourselves to socially constructive values and choices. Existential living is the quality of life “here and now” so that each moment of one’s living is new and different from all that experienced before. Live for to-day and make the most of the present moment. If we reflect on the past and project the desire for the future, we are missing the present which is the very existence. Past is dead and future is yet to come or happen. The present is the real which does not create anything false. Remain with the moment. Hence it is better to relate ourselves with our “nowness” and “hereness”. (Osho, Vedanta: An Art of Dying New Delhi: Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd, 1991, P. 105.)

Another theme is the anxiety and encounter with nothingness which looms as large as love does. It is concerned with death as it is with life. Anxiety is “the sense, of dread, of being choked out of life”. It is a painful feeling to the human situation. It is an ultimate death of non-being which is, inevitable and inescapable destiny of all human beings. If we are to save ourselves from anxiety, we should set before ourselves a goal of meaningful life. We are the only creatures aware of the possibility of non­being. We are constantly feeling that death will occur at any place and in any moment. This will lead to existential anxiety. This helps us to ponder whether we are living a meaningful and fulfilling life or not. “Do good whilst thou livest if you wishest to life after death”. As Shakespeare put it in Julius Ceasar. “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones”. To resist existential anxiety, one has to live a life that counts for something and altruistic relationships with others. The Red Cross motto points out: “Do something for nothing and you will get everything”. “Giving should be done without the desire for return or reward”. In a word, do something wild continuously in one’s life time”. As Helen Keller once remarked, “I feel life an exciting business - and most exciting when it is lived for others”. ¹¹ We should develop self-­control and mind control so that we may maintain poise without being overtaken by anxiety and unwholesome emotions.

HUMAN POTENTIAL APPROACH: The existentialists are hesitant of employing scientific behavioural analysis lest they should lose sight of the true nature of a person. Further, they are more curious in exploring the depths of the human mind and spirit and people’s potential. This type of approach has been called the human potential approach. The holistic knowledge derived from human mind and spirit helps in the blossoming of the full human potential. This approach helps for optimal development of potential abilities, knowledge and skills.

The basic concept underlying the human potential is that the average people normally employ an insignificant part of the creativity, initiative, inner feeling and experience of which they are endowed with. It is upto them to help themselves learn to become more spontaneous and creative through new ways of feeling, communicating ­and being. This is the need, according to Malsow,” “to be what one is capable of becoming”, “what a man can be he must be”.

Potential approach. stresses on imparting knowledge which brings about “global thinking, emotional balance and alter correct attitude and outlook in man and transform his behaviour qualitatively as well”. ¹²

TECHNIQUES:

Techniques for achieving these qualities are said to include the following: Existential therapy is based on existential concepts pointing out the development of a sense of direction and meaning in one’s existence.

I. Exercises in relaxation and sensory awareness. II. Nude sensitivity training. III. Tai-chi (meditation in movement). IV Dance Therapy. V. Body Massage. VI. Transcedental Meditation. VII. Seminars on Love and Sex. VIII. Zen Buddhism. IX. Yoga and related topics. X. Assertiveness Training. XI. Transactional Analysis. XII. Encounter Groups. XIII. Gestalt Therapy Workshop. XIV. Raja yoga, meditation.

To sum up, many concepts of existentialists such as choice, freedom, courage, values, ‘meaning” obligation, non-being and extential anxiety have a clout on contemporary thought.

REFERENCES:

¹ Christoper F. Monte, Beneath The Mask on Introduction to Theories of Personality, US: Hotl, Rinehart and Winston, 1980, P. 419.
² Laing R. D. The Politics of Family, Newyork: Vintuge, 1969, P. 66.
³ The Divided Self. Baltimore: Penguin (Pelican ed). 1959, P. 45.
^3A Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1941, P.230.
⁴ The papal Encyclial of 12 August, 1950, Humani Generis.
^4A Zerald Zaltman and Melanie Wallendorf, Consumer Behainor Basic Findings and Management Implications, New York: Wiley, 1979.
⁵ Carl Rogers, A Study of Science, Vol. III, Formulations of the person in the Social Context, Newyork: McGraw-Hill, 1959,P. 222.
⁶ May, Rollo “The Emergence of Existential psychology” in R. May (Ed), Existential Psychology Newyork: Random House 1961 P. 12.
⁷ Ibid., P. 11.
⁸ Rollo May, “The Origins and Significance of the Existential Movement in Psychology”, Newyork; Basic Books, 1958 P.63.
⁹ Shlien, John M. “Pheomenology and personality” In Joseph W. Wempman and Ralph W. Heine. (Eds.) Concepts of personality, Chicago Aldine, 1963, P. 298.
¹⁰ The Reader’s Companion to World Literature, Newyork: A Mentor Book, 1973, P.183.
¹¹ Alan Loy Mc Ginnis, “Getting the Most out of Life”, Bombay: Reader’s Digest, December 1992, P: 132.
¹² Dr. Chilana Mulk Raj, Divine Values For “The golden Age”, New Delhi: Purity, October 1992, Vol. XII No. 1, P. 8.