book: The Divided Self, R. D. Laing
I read psychology books from the perspective of the patient, not the doctor. I'm a psychosis-experiencer, not a psychologist.
R. D. Laing is known as a prominent anti-psychiatrist, though he objected to people calling him such. he made waves in 60s psychiatry with the suggestion that psychotics are worth listening to. our psychotic worldview may not mesh onto your "non-psychotic" one, but our speech, fears, actions and lackthereof, can be better understood and soothed if a doctor takes the time to understand the vantage point we're coming from.
basically, The Divided Self boils down to the suggestion that clinical detachment prevents helping us psychotics, and might make it worse. it suggests: Why not treat us like human beings?
this main suggestion is one that I would hope that has been accepted by now, but it hasn't. discrimination against psychotics is still commonplace even within disability and mental illness spaces. Some of Laing's suggestions are outdated for sure (linking psychosis with homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia) but somehow most of it seems very modern-times-relevant.
shame on the psychiatric institutions, I guess.
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