Terrors and Experts

When I was going into analysis because people wanted me to be a highly medicated individual, I was told that I had a negative personality. Anything I ever could have been in life was not like me. I was not interested in the symptoms that made me such a schizoid personality disorder. I would rather have highs and lows than a chemical fuzz bomb for my brain. Like the United States drafted Elvis Presley to show that he was like everybody else who was willing to go along with what males were expected to do, many Americans have been treated for their problems. The Vet Center and a minister both pushed me to a shrink in October, 1989. I took a good look at the regimentation for uniformity that seemed like a cultivation of stupidity to me because I want to blame it on what Adam Phillips calls "envy (contempt is always disowned shame)." American society functions like an artificial sex machine with no identity subsidized by an inhibition elsewhere. Back in 1995, when this book was published, few people expected the kind of problems Y2K and America have been scaring the world with. Instead of reading a book like this to find solutions, I delve into it like this is what I really wanted: a search for what is obviously the kind of trouble that makes everybody want everything to be all different.

One of Phillips' best books.

"People come for psychoanalysis - or choose someone to have a conversation with - when they feel they can no longer keep a secret." In this slim and satisfying book, Phillips distills his not inconsiderable devotion to psychoanalysis into six thoughtful essays. Phillips seems to have read everything; he thinks deeply, and has an astonishing ability to synthesize. His assertions challenge the reader, and he supports them with evidence.His essays read like easy, intelligent musings, but he has slyly assembled his facts. Some of his sources are Lacan, Winnicott, Freud, Ferenczi, Franz Kafka, Khan, Descartes - among many others. He's an original, a clinician as well as a theoretician, and has a compassionate heart as well as a great mind.

Arrived promptly and wrapped well. It is as new! Content is the usual high standard. Makes the brain ached with such strong thinking, but Adam phillips also talks about the every day and mundane complexities of living life in such a way as to make it all feasible, and worth doing. Makes me want to learn more!

I adore this writer. he is engaging, articulate and also has a wonderful way with words, I can never put his book down they are beautiful and inspiring, thoughtful.