SOURCE: A review of Knots, in The New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1970, p. 6.

In the following favorable review of Knots, Gordon discusses how Laing uses the themes of communication and interpersonal relationships as "patterns … of human bondage" in his poetry.

At the beginning of his first book, The Divided Self, R. D. Laing quoted the French psychiatrist Minkowski: "This is a subjective work which tries with all its might to be objective."

For the last 12 years, in eight books and numerous articles, Laing has, to the dismay of much of orthodox psychiatry, pushed his own subjectivity to its limits. He has returned with observations, insights and formulations which seem quite pertinent to the lives of thousands of devoted readers. Like Freud 40 years ago, Laing is read as psychiatric theoretician, political philosopher and personal guru.

In Knots, his most recent book, Laing continues to explore some of the...