On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life

By Adam Phillips

Book Overview

In a style that is writerly and audacious, Adam Phillips takes up a variety of seemingly ordinary subjects underinvestigated by psychoanalysis--kissing, worrying, risk, solitude, composure, even farting as it relates to worrying.

He argues that psychoanalysis began as a virtuoso improvisation within the science of medicine, but that virtuosity has given way to the dream of science that only the examined life is worth living. Phillips goes on to show how the drive to omniscience has been unfortunate both for psychoanalysis and for life. He reveals how much one's psychic health depends on establishing a realm of life that successfully resists examination.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00A2PIUXW
• ISBN13: 9780674634633
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Pure Joy

Not only is this book rife with insights, it is also written with tenderness and the prose are crystal clean. My background is more in theory. But I was struck by how plainspoken and easy to understand Phillips is here. --Jargon-free and straightforward. You certainly don't have to be a rocket scientist to follow him. Personally, I feel just a little bit happier in my life for having read this book. It is profoundly sane. And great fun.

Thought-provoking

Adam Phillips writing is extremely thought-provoking, though a little more academic than I'd expected. Also, another reviewer has written that a more than fundamental knowledge of Freud's philosophies are important before tackling Mr. Phillips' text. I agree. It's been fifteen years since I've read Freud, so the memory was a little rusty. From someone who never reads philosophy, this really held my interest. Time well spent...

Very good

The essays were more academic than I'd anticipated and I think they presuppose a working knowledge of Freud and psychoanalytic theory. I skipped around to the ones that interested me, meaning I didn't feel like reading all of them. I've got an advanced degree in psychology; I understand from where this book comes and I thought it was just fine. Smart, worth looking at, but not as "nothing else like this" as the reviews seem to indicate. Worth mentioning: Phillips is a child psychologist and his anecdotes, from his own practice, are about children. Four stars for intelligence.

delicious psychoanalytic attention to overlooked topics

new and creative vehicle for teaching/exploring analytic thought--the essay--similar in style to Yolam's "Love's Executioner"

very stimulating!

This book is a great buy totally the best.