Adam Phillips (psychologist)
Encyclopedia
Adam Phillips is a British child psychotherapist, literary critic and essayist. He is known for his books dealing with topics related to psychoanalysis
. Phillips is also the general editor of the second Penguin edition of the selected works of Sigmund Freud
and a contributor to the London Review of Books
.
's autobiography and he has always believed psychoanalysis to be closer to poetry than medicine: "For me, psychoanalysis has always been of a piece with the various languages of literature - a kind of practical poetry." He began psychology training soon after leaving Oxford and qualified to practice at the age of 27. He had a particular interest in children and began working as a child psychologist - "one of the pleasures of child psychotherapy is that it is, as it were, psychoanalysis for a non-psychoanalytic audience." For eight years he was principal child psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He currently divides his time between writing and his private practice in Notting Hill.
of London as “the Martin Amis
of British psychoanalysis” for his “brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling” work; and by John Banville
as "one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson
of our time." His approach to the new Freud edition is consistent with his own ideas about psychoanalysis, which he considers to be a form of rhetorical persuasion. He has published essays on a variety of themes, including the work of literary figures such as Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor and William Empson, as well as on philosophy and psychoanalysis; and has written Winnicott
in the Fontana Modern Masters
series. He is deeply opposed to any attempt to defend psychoanalysis as a science or even as a field of academic study, rather than simply, as he puts it, “a set of stories about how we can nourish ourselves to keep faith with our belief in nourishment, our desire for desire” - "stories [that] will sustain our appetite, which is, by definition, our appetitite for life."
to consider the possibility that "we have been too successful at success and failure...in a culture so bewitched...by the idea of success", he is nevertheless realistic enough to acknowledge that "personal development necessitates a certain moral opportunism"; and may even have been speaking from personal experience when he concluded in Going Sane that "the best lives, like the worst lives, are driven lives."
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Phillips is also the general editor of the second Penguin edition of the selected works of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and a contributor to the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
.
Life
Phillips was born in Cardiff in 1954, the child of second-generation Polish Jews. He grew up as part of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins and describes his parents as “very consciously Jewish but not believing.” As a child, his first interest was the study of tropical birds and it was not until adolescence that he developed an interest in literature. He went on to study English at Oxford University and his defining influences are literary – he was inspired to become a psychoanalyst after reading Carl JungCarl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
's autobiography and he has always believed psychoanalysis to be closer to poetry than medicine: "For me, psychoanalysis has always been of a piece with the various languages of literature - a kind of practical poetry." He began psychology training soon after leaving Oxford and qualified to practice at the age of 27. He had a particular interest in children and began working as a child psychologist - "one of the pleasures of child psychotherapy is that it is, as it were, psychoanalysis for a non-psychoanalytic audience." For eight years he was principal child psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He currently divides his time between writing and his private practice in Notting Hill.
Literary presence
Phillips is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. He has been described by The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
of London as “the Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
of British psychoanalysis” for his “brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling” work; and by John Banville
John Banville
John Banville is an Irish novelist and screenwriter.Banville's breakthrough novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011...
as "one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
of our time." His approach to the new Freud edition is consistent with his own ideas about psychoanalysis, which he considers to be a form of rhetorical persuasion. He has published essays on a variety of themes, including the work of literary figures such as Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor and William Empson, as well as on philosophy and psychoanalysis; and has written Winnicott
Donald Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory. He was a leading member of the British Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytic Society, and a close associate of Marion Milner...
in the Fontana Modern Masters
Fontana Modern Masters
The Fontana Modern Masters was a series of pocket guides on the writers, philosophers, and other thinkers and theorists whose ideas were shaping the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century. The first five titles were published on 12 January 1970 by Fontana Books, the paperback imprint of...
series. He is deeply opposed to any attempt to defend psychoanalysis as a science or even as a field of academic study, rather than simply, as he puts it, “a set of stories about how we can nourish ourselves to keep faith with our belief in nourishment, our desire for desire” - "stories [that] will sustain our appetite, which is, by definition, our appetitite for life."
Assessment
What comes across most clearly (to some) in Phillips’ work is his intelligence, his strength of character, his breadth of learning and, most profoundly, his humility; and he has certainly been described as "perhaps the best theorist of the modes and malfunctions of modernist psychology." For his intellectual resources, Phillips "draws from philosophy, literature, politics amongst others. However, whilst this affords Phillips the opportunity to be expansive it also makes him a maverick", and others "suspicious of his work", so that he has been called "ludic and elusive and intellectually slippery." Indeed "To his critics...Phillips is little more than a charlatan about whom an alarming cult of personality is growing" He himself was opposed to 'the idealization that is a refusal to know someone', and even in appraisal of the psychoanalytic greats thought that alongside "thoughtful consideration...puerile consideration would not be the end of the world", in accordance with his enduring scepticism "about psychoanalysis...it should be the opposite, the antidote to a cult." We should therefore perhaps best assess him in the spirit of his own assessment of Freud as 'an interesting writer. Not a figure to idolize, but an interesting writer.'On psychoanalysis
Phillips constantly refuses to “claim” any particular patch of psychoanalytic territory or even defend the value of psychoanalysis itself. “For me”, he has said, “psychoanalysis is only one among many things you might do if you're feeling unwell - you might also try aromatherapy, knitting, hang-gliding. There are lots of things you can do with your distress. I don't believe psychoanalysis is the best thing you can do, even if I value it a great deal”. He has also been alert to the possibility that "psychoanalysis...disempowers in the name of knowing what's best...at its worst it forces a pattern. It can make the links that should have been left to find their own way." In the end, he claims, "Psychoanalysis cannot enable the patient to know what he wants, but only to risk finding out."Conclusion
His knack for playful epigrams sometimes belies the fact that Phillips is always questioning, probing, thinking, examining, and second-guessing. Unafraid to revise his ideas, or to challenge those of others, he seems to have little interest in academic respectability and to do "little to seek out the fame that he enjoys in the literary world." But while prepared even in the heyday of neoliberalismNeoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
to consider the possibility that "we have been too successful at success and failure...in a culture so bewitched...by the idea of success", he is nevertheless realistic enough to acknowledge that "personal development necessitates a certain moral opportunism"; and may even have been speaking from personal experience when he concluded in Going Sane that "the best lives, like the worst lives, are driven lives."
Works
- On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life (1993)
- Terrors and Experts (1995)
- On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life (1995)
- Monogamy (1996)
- The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity and Other Appetites (1998)
- Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Death Stories (1999)
- Promises, Promises (2000)
- Houdini's Box: On the Arts of Escape (2001)
- Equals: On Inhibition, Mockery, Hierarchy, and the Pleasures of Democracy (2002)
- Going Sane (2005)
- Side Effects (2006)
- Intimacies (With Leo Bersani, 2008)
- On Kindness (With Barbara Taylor, 2009)
- On Balance (2010)
External links
- Review of The Beast in the Nursery
- Discussion with Adam Phillips about Monogamy
- Profile in The New Statesman
- Audio: Adam Phillips in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The ForumThe Forum (BBC World Service)The Forum is the BBC World Service's flagship discussion programme. It brings together prominent thinkers from different disciplines and different parts of the world to try and create stimulating discussion, informed by highly distinct academic, artistic and cultural backgrounds.-Format:Each...
- Fisun Gunar Q&A:Adam Phillips 17.4.2010