Adam Phillips

Kindness is the foundation of the world's great religions and most-enduring philosophies. Why, then, does being kind feel so dangerous? If we crave kindness with such intensity, why is it a pleasure we often deny ourselves? And why-despite our longing-are we often suspicious when we are on the receiving end of it? In this brilliant book, the eminent psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and the historian Barbara Taylor examine the pleasures and perils of kindness....

"Phillips has made psychoanalytic thought livelier and more poetic than ever… One of [his] finest and most broadly appealing books." - New York Times "Phillips offers a detailed description of what sanity can mean today." - Los Angeles Times "Beautifully written…clever and funny, and properly profound…A lovely addition to Phillips' guides to living a happier life." - GQ "Phillip's arguments, both thought provoking and provocative, may affect...

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). Based on three connected lectures by Adam Phillips, this compact book is a lucid and memorable introduction to the concept of our...

We live in a world in which we are invited to change-to become our best selves through politics, or fitness, or diet, or therapy. We change all the time-growing older and older-and how we think about change changes over time too. We 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. Adam Phillips's sparkling book On Wanting to Change explores the stories...

Can rats learn to surf? How fat was the fattest cat? How many Lego bricks would it take to reach the Moon? Find out the answers to these questions and many, many more in this fascinating fact book. With clear, engaging text and vibrant illustrations, kids can discover the world's fastest, biggest, oldest, and weirdest in an accessible and engaging way. Perfect for children aged 7+. ABOUT THE SERIES: Big Ideas! is a dynamic, educational "fun fact"...

"Chuck Restic has achieved the American dream: a successful career with a large corporation, his own home, and the best health care insurance and retirement package money can buy ... but he's crumbling inside. Twenty years in Human Resources have pushed Chuck Restic into an existential crisis. Only when he sets out to find a missing employee from his L.A. firm does he feel alive again. Applying his HR skills and wit to his moonlight detective work,...

"Becoming Freud is the story of the young Freud-Freud up until the age of fifty-that incorporates all of Freud's many misgivings about the art of biography. Freud invented a psychological treatment that involved the telling and revising of life stories, but he was himself skeptical of the writing of such stories. In this biography, Adam Phillips, whom the New Yorker calls "Britain's foremost psychoanalytical writer," emphasizes the largely and inevitably...

"A new book from the acclaimed psychoanalytic writer Adam Phillips on giving up to feel more alive"--