ABSTRACT
Many more young men than young women kill themselves. They are also more likely to suffer schizophrenic self-division. Self-division is, of course, the essence of schizophrenia. Its name is derived from the Greek for splitting of the mind. Laufer and other Freudians attribute schizophrenia, as well as suicide, in adolescence to an inner mind–body split. They argue that schizophrenic and psychotic episodes in adolescence involve the wish to destroy the body, experienced as divided from the mind. Schizophrenia, Laing wrote, often involves reacting to the dread of emotional involvement and closeness with others by cultivating the illusion of being entirely split off, uninvolved, detached, isolated, and alone. The schizophrenic, Laing claimed, disconnects himself both from others and from himself. He ‘uncouples’ himself, as one of Laing’s patients put it. He imagines he can maintain his mind unsullied by, and free from crippling intrusion by others by absenting himself from his body.
