R.D. Laing's new book is one of his most important: a compelling synthesis of many of the themes with which he has been dealing in recent years, a major step forward in his own thought. It is about the nature of our experiences, our ability to feel, our understanding and acceptance of what we feel. At the same time, it is a convincing argument against those who wish to control those feelings, to negate them, to deny them, even to outlaw them. Laing draws on recent scientific and medical thought and practice to show the degree to which the validity of experience is denied by those unable to imagine that it may be there. He cites a number of telling instances of doctors' deciding to tranquilize or even to incarcerate patients who are feeling understandable and valid emotions that the medical profession deems inappropriate. Rarely has Laing's similarity to Foucault been more apparent than in this marvelous description of those who wish to control what we feel. Turning to some of his most illustrious predecessors - Freud, Jung, and Winnicott - Laing shows the openness with which they were willing to regard a whole range of experience: what we feel at birth or before it, what the experience of death may be, what other cultures have understood to be part of human experience. Laing argues convincingly for a similar receptiveness and sympathy for what may seem strange, immeasurable, or threatening. But his book is also a moving warning of what will happen to us if, instead of feeling, we let others decide what our emotions should be. /SPIS TREŚCI Acknowledgements PART ONE Experience and Science The Objective Look The Diagnostic Look The Possibility of Experience Birth and Before The Prenatal Bond PART TWO Embryologems, Psychologems, Mythologems Dual Unity The Tie and the Cut-Off Entry Egg, Sphere and Self Recessions and Regressions Coda źródło opisu: Pantheon Books, 1982 źródło okładki: Zdjęcie autorskie