{"title":"Books by Adam Phillips","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780571170227","title":"On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored","description":"The author is committed to psychoanalysis as part of a wider cultural conversation, and this unique collection of essays on a wide range of relatively unexplored subjects combines literary and philosophical commentary with vivid clinical vignettes.'Like Chekhov, Phillips writes as well as he doctors, and his fascination with the subtleties of human behaviour makes him a good storyteller.He has a welcome openness to the essential strangeness of every person; this alone is reason enough to read him.' 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In \u003ci\u003eMissing Out\u003c\/i\u003e acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips delves into the gap between who we are and who we are not, to discover whether not getting what we want may be the unlikely key to the fully lived life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his trademark combination of open-minded enquiry and exhilarating argument, drawing primarily on the twin worlds of literature and psychoanalysis, Phillips will delight readers old and new in this much-anticipated book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224210485621,"sku":"9780141031811","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141031811_741d2be0-9655-4587-98e3-039202ecd9b6.jpg?v=1786011641"},{"product_id":"9780141039336","title":"On Kindness","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat is kindness? Does it make us happier? \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnd does it have a place in a selfish world?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePsychoanalyst Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor present an elegant, thoughtful and concise analysis of kindness in history, in life and in the modern world. Suggesting that acts of kindness occur when we are at our most open and honest, they ask why it is that our faith in kindness has been shaken - and why we are all too ready to believe that antagonism has taken its place.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224323436917,"sku":"9780141039336","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141039336_194c2a85-6508-4444-b858-6ee28290448e.jpg?v=1786011818"},{"product_id":"9780141012506","title":"Side Effects","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eMissing Out \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eOn Kindness, \u003c\/i\u003eBritain's pre-eminent psychoanalyst examines how the things we don't mean, or mean perhaps to forget, prove to be those that are often most telling about our unconscious lives. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSide effects are things we do not intend. Phillips intends for us to question our conscious pursuit of happiness, explaining that, in refusing to admit and explore life's down sides, we can only be living half lives. And through his unique and incisive exploration of literature, Phillips also demonstrates what the great novelists have to tell us about ourselves. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth illuminating and fascinating on literature as well as life, \u003ci\u003eSide Effects\u003c\/i\u003e maps our edges as human beings, and, in doing so, goes some way to helping give shape to our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224443761013,"sku":"9780141012506","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141012506_b2c5105a-b53f-4eeb-bec4-7614801cfe98.jpg?v=1786011282"},{"product_id":"9780141031507","title":"Winnicott","description":"\u003cp\u003eD.W. Winnicott's remarkable books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Piggle\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHome Is Where We Start From \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Child, Family and the Outside World \u003c\/i\u003e(all published by Penguin) are still read, valued and argued with over thirty years after his death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdam Phillips's short book, now issued with a new preface, is an elegant, thoughtful attempt to get to grips with a writer, paediatrician and psychiatrist whose work with children and mothers (and the wider implications their relationship has for all of us) continues to be profoundly relevant and fascinating.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224486523253,"sku":"9780141031507","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141031507_ab56043b-7142-4b2f-aff6-698a045f27f3.jpg?v=1786011633"},{"product_id":"9780241291771","title":"On Wanting to Change","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the UK's foremost literary psychoanalyst, a dazzling new book on the universal urge to change our lives.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe live in a world in which we are invited to change - to become our best selves, through politics, or fitness, or diet, or therapy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe change all the time - growing older and older - and how we think about change changes over time too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe want to think of our lives as progress myths - as narratives of positive personal growth - at the same time as we inevitably age and suffer setbacks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo there are the stories we tell about change, and there are the changes we actually make - and they don't always go, or come, together . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis sparkling book is about that fact.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56228762878325,"sku":"9780241291771","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241291771_03f07124-2879-4d7e-a0a9-8bf5e40302f4.jpg?v=1786012905"},{"product_id":"9780241964088","title":"Unforbidden Pleasures","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSo much has been written about forbidden pleasures. What about pleasures that are unforbidden?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSociety is fascinated by taboo - we spend our lives chasing illicit pleasures - but nobody pays much attention to all the \u003ci\u003eunforbidden\u003c\/i\u003e pleasures freely available to us every day. Could we be gaining just as much reward from these unnoticed, unforbidden indulgences as from the much-glorified forbidden - or even more?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarting with Oscar Wilde, Adam Phillips elegantly unfolds all the meanings and significances of the Unforbidden, from Genesis to Freud and his 20th century colleagues. \u003ci\u003eUnforbidden Pleasures \u003c\/i\u003eexplores the philosophical, psychological and social complexities that govern human desire and shape our reality.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56230292423029,"sku":"9780241964088","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241964088_36f236cf-ec2a-4900-be49-4e3477ff28b6.jpg?v=1786012574"},{"product_id":"9780241964101","title":"One Way and Another","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA selection of the most popular and relevant essays from Adam Phillips, the man \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e called 'Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Phillips's prose is poetic in the best sense: it is muscular, resonant, and thrums with a dark music that is all its own' John Banville\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the twenty essays gathered here, ranging across his entire oeuvre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips offers a vivid introduction to his discipline as well as his own unique thinking. Investigating subjects as diverse as desire, family, happiness, tickling, forgetting and even boredom, Phillips proves himself to be not only one of our most engaging writers but also a fascinating and provocative guide to our obsessions as human beings.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56230359466357,"sku":"9780241964101","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241964101_329d218a-d7ef-44de-bd97-f853c8c13f10.jpg?v=1786012575"},{"product_id":"9780241986721","title":"Attention Seeking","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA short, fascinating introduction to the concept of attention from Britain's leading psychoanalyst, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eauthor of \u003ci\u003eMissing Out \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eOn Kindness.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat we find of interest may tell us more than we think...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e'Everything depends on what, if anything, we find interesting: on what we are encouraged and educated to find interesting, and what we find ourselves being interested in despite ourselves. There is our official curiosity and our unofficial curiosity (and psychoanalysis is a story about the relationship between the two) . . .'\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on three connected talks on the subject of attention, this pocket-sized book is a quirky and memorable introduction to the concept of our attention - how we spend it, and what it might tell us about ourselves. From Britain's pre-eminent psychoanalyst, this is an essential new addition to the Adam Phillips canon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e'The best living essayist writing in English' - John Gray\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56231202062709,"sku":"9780241986721","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241986721_4c91a6ab-66b5-4083-88bc-94f92641b6fd.jpg?v=1786012171"},{"product_id":"9780300283334","title":"Second Chances – Shakespeare and Freud","description":"A powerful exploration of the human capacity for renewal, as seen through Shakespeare and Freud   “A compellingly readable and intelligent book. . . . Both authors write with impressive energy.”—Rowan Williams, New Statesman   In this fresh investigation, Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips explore how the second chance has been an essential feature of the literary imagination and a promise so central to our existence that we try to reproduce it again and again. Innumerable stories, from the Homeric epics to the New Testament, and from Oedipus Rex to Hamlet, explore the realization or failure of second chances—outcomes that depend on accident, acts of will, or fate. Such stories let us repeatedly rehearse the experience of loss and recovery: to know the joy that comes with a renewal of love and pleasure and to face the pain that comes with realizing that some damage can never be undone.      Through a series of illuminating readings, the authors show how Shakespeare was the supreme virtuoso of the second chance and Freud was its supreme interpreter. Both Shakespeare and Freud believed that we can narrate our life stories as tales of transformation, of momentous shifts, constrained by time and place but often still possible. Ranging from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter’s Tale, and from D. W. Winnicott to Marcel Proust, the authors challenge readers to imagine how, as Phillips writes, “it is the mending that matters.”","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56232470577525,"sku":"9780300283334","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300283334.jpg?v=1791212818"},{"product_id":"9780571209736","title":"Promises, Promises","description":"\u003cp\u003eHas psychoanalysis failed to keep its promise? What are psychoanalysis and literature good for? And what, if anything, have they got to do with each other? \u003cb\u003ePromises, Promises\u003c\/b\u003e is a delightful new collection of essays which sets out to make and break the links between psychoanalysis and literature. It confirms Adam Phillips as a virtuoso performer able to reach far beyond the borders of psychoanalytic discourse into art, drama, poetry and history. This collection gives us insights into anorexia and cloning, the work of Tom Stoppard and A.E. Housman, the effect of the Blitz on Londoners, Nijinsky's diary and Martin Amis's \u003cb\u003eNight Train\u003c\/b\u003e, and provides a case history of clutter. In a final essay, the author turns to the question - why sign up for analysis when you could read a book?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePromoting everywhere a refreshing version of a psychoanalysis that is more committed to happiness and inspiration than to self-knowledge or some absolute truth, \u003cb\u003ePromises, Promises\u003c\/b\u003e reaffirms Adam Phillips as a writer whose work, in the words of one reviewer, 'hovers in a strange and haunting borderland between rigour and delight.'\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291260367221,"sku":"9780571209736","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571209736_d3ab4c31-20f9-4999-95be-3d46e83beafb.jpg?v=1786013545"},{"product_id":"9780571175840","title":"Terrors and Experts","description":"In the style of his earlier books, \"On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored\" and \"On Flirtation\", the author discusses ways in which we may be terrorized by experts, and the idea of expertise itself. He challenges the conventional idea of the \"self\" as something to be known, and sets out to show how self-knowledge is the problem rather than the solution. By examining our wish to believe things - and people (including psychoanalysts) - the book offers a revision of psychoanalysis itself. For to take psychoanalysis seriously, Phillips suggests, is to be unable to take gurus seriously.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291572973941,"sku":"9780571175840","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571175840_376b78b5-ffb1-4f2e-93a6-2f82b7f057ac.jpg?v=1786013412"},{"product_id":"9780571174904","title":"On Flirtation","description":"\u003cp\u003eAdam Phillips uses the idea of flirtation to explore the virtues of being uncommitted - to people, to ideas, to methods - and the pleasures of uncertainty. These buoyant essays promote a psychoanalysis with a light touch, a psychoanalysis for pleasure and curiosity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'In \u003cb\u003eOn Flirtation\u003c\/b\u003e, he has again deployed all his erudition and perception to beguiling effect . . . Adam Phillips may well be one of our greatest contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers.' \u003ci\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292011213173,"sku":"9780571174904","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571174904_22413704-cb66-44ab-9671-a05227f196f3.jpg?v=1786013406"},{"product_id":"9780571206650","title":"Houdini's Box","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn his most captivating book to date, Adam Phillips explores mankind's on-going fascination with ideas of escape. 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With clear, engaging text and hilarious illustrations, children can explore topics from science to sports, hobbies to history, and animals to appetites, helping them learn about the world around them in an accessible and engaging way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDiscover:\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp;bull; Whether hot or cold water freezes faster\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp;bull; Which creature has a hundred eyes\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp;bull; What is a jellyfish made of?\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp;bull; How did Vikings celebrate success in battle?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBrimming with trivia that kids will love to share, it's perfect for readers aged 7+.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298302505333,"sku":"9781398847873","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781398847873_6b7e71a6-32a3-433b-87bc-5f214fe03c2d.jpg?v=1786019185"},{"product_id":"9781405958035","title":"On Giving Up","description":"'A wise, generous book' Washington PostFrom acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, a meditation on what we must give up to feel more alive.   To give up or not to give up?The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple.   Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable.   There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment - an attempt to make a different future.   In On Giving Up, acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive?'One of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson of our time' John Banville'The best living essayist writing in English' John Gray","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299074748789,"sku":"9781405958035","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781405958035_961f9c7d-c36d-41a8-982a-f7ba90fefe51.jpg?v=1786019235"},{"product_id":"9780226043456","title":"Intimacies","description":"Two gifted and highly prolific intellectuals, Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips, here engage in a fascinating dialogue about the problems and possibilities of human intimacy. 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Persuasive and provocative, \"Intimacies\" is a rare opportunity to listen in on two brilliant thinkers as they explore new ways of thinking about the human psyche.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311624892789,"sku":"9780226043456","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226043456_2dd413c8-54bd-4463-9a16-115d95b82db1.jpg?v=1786012268"},{"product_id":"9780241541883","title":"On Getting Better","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo talk about getting better - about wanting to change in ways that we might choose and prefer - is to talk about pursuing the life we want; in the full knowledge that our pictures of the life we want, of our version of a good life, come from or come out of what we have already experienced. 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And, what do we do – and fail to do – about actually getting them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Want \u003c\/i\u003eAdam Phillips uses psychoanalytic and literary approaches to show that we are obsessed by the idea of our lives being ones we want and enjoy rather than merely endure, tolerate or make the most of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough a series of interlinked essays, Phillips explores the difficulties we have around the whole idea of enjoying – and fashioning – our lives in cultures that insistently promote enjoyment while making it very difficult for so many people. 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But the one thing you will never be is bored' \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'One of those writers whom it is a pleasure simply to hear think' \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466526302581,"sku":"9780241979235","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241979235.jpg?v=1785654583"},{"product_id":"on-balance","title":"On Balance","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eMissing Out \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e On Kindness, \u003c\/i\u003eBritain's pre-eminent psychoanalyst explores our relationship with balance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Reading Phillips, you may be amused, vexed, dazzled. But the one thing you will never be is bored' \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this absorbing and provocative new book from one of Britain's most elegant and original prose stylists, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips addresses a variety of urgent concerns - many centred around the idea of balance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen might we know that enough is enough? Does the road of excess ever lead to the palace of wisdom? What is the role of the parent, the teacher and of psychoanalysis itself in the development of children's minds? Should we be happy, or is there something better we can be? 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Now, in a book of 121 aphorisms, Adam Phillips asks why we all  believe in monogamy, and why we find it so difficult to think about. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEveryone  knows that most people, however much they may love their partner, are  capable of loving and desiring more than one person at a time. It may be  reassuring, but it is in fact very demanding -- and often cruel -- to  assume that only one person can give us what we want. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least  in sexual matters, sharing seems to go deeply against the grain.  Monogamy is so much taken for granted as the foundation of the family  and of family values that, as with anything that seems essential, we are  very wary of being critical of it. 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Teng, Karen Weiser, and Melissa White Gomez.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn his first essay, ‘The Magic of Winnicott: Playing and reality, and reality’, Adam Phillips makes clear the subtlety and wisdom of Winnicott’s concept of play. Its inspiration came from a wonderful and unanticipated encounter with the extraordinary Marion Milner that plays into and influences the entire essay. In his second, ‘The Cure for Psychoanalysis’, he works through psychoanalytic theories about cure and instructs us to take most seriously those that free the analyst and patient to wonder and to take pleasure in the unknowable adventure ahead of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese two thought-provoking writings frame a discussion between the author and Edward Corrigan, analyst and friend, which offers an intimate portrait of two analysts in conversation, thoughtfully reflecting on traditions that inform Phillips’ practice and prolific works. 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