As a sixth-former I was an avid listener to Anthony Clare's Radio 4 programme ‘In the Psychiatrist's Chair’. Of the interviews Clare conducted, two continue to stick in my mind: one with Jimmy Savile, the other with R. D. Laing. The image with which Clare left me was that of Laing as a rather romantic, yet tragic individual. Raschid's edited volume on Laing both reinforced and modified this impression. The volume is divided into three sections: introduction, ideas and therapy, with the second section the longest and, for me, the most worthwhile. The papers are largely either original contributions or derive from the R. D. Laing conferences, organised under the auspices of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. There are some papers that deal less directly with the work of Laing: the contributions of Fuchs, Sass and Matthews in particular serve, from different perspectives, as lucid and clear introductions to phenomenology and the philosophy of psychiatry. What is refreshing is that the contributors who engage directly with Laing's thought and influence are not unquestioning, bedazzled disciples. Many of the papers are critical of Laing's views on mental illness, psychotherapy, politics and his use and understanding of philosophy. There was a tendency, particularly in Laing post-Divided Self, to romanticise mental illness. This was combined with an aspiration towards transcendence and otherwordliness. The book achieved one very important thing for me personally: it shifted the image of the tormented Laing as interviewed by Clare and replaced it with that of the young army psychiatrist spending hours trying to interview and understand the distressed soldiers under his care. This is the Laing I am left in full admiration of. The tragedy is not so much that of Laing's own personal life but rather his own seeming loss of this immediate prereflective ability to be with and understand people in distress. One could interpret his later work as an attempt to reify, in an increasingly esoteric fashion, that which once came so easily.

There are a few pedantic criticisms of the book. The same point is repeated by different authors in different papers leading to some degree of repetition, not all works cited in the text are referenced and there is no index. Many contributors to the volume also offer an incorrect or simplistic interpretation of Jaspers’ views on understanding those with mental illness. I would still recommend to medical students and trainee mental health clinicians The Divided Self as an account of engaging with those with mental illness and am grateful to R. D. Laing: Contemporary Perspectives for reminding us of the passion of Captain Laing.