The Cure for Psychoanalysis
Author: Adam Phillips
This book contains two brilliant essays by one of the foremost thinkers in the field of psychoanalysis. In the first essay, ‘The Magic of Winnicott,’ Adam Phillips makes clear the subtlety and wisdom of Winnicott’s concept of play. In ‘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.
These 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. This record of ‘A Day with Adam Phillips’ at The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York includes questions and commentaries which demonstrate the creative and open expression encouraged by and reflected in the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
REVIEWS AND ENDORSEMENTS
“We know Adam Phillips to be a remarkable writer but in this wonderfully spirited book we discover he is also an endlessly interesting conversationalist. With his old friend, Ed Corrigan, as a talk-buddy, we are privy to dialogue as a form of performance art. There is genius here; there is good humor; there is joy. It doesn’t get better than this.” Christopher Bollas, psychoanalyst, author of Meaning and Melancholia, and The Shadow of the Object.
“The book’s call and response format, the supple back and forth movement between Phillips and his audience … serves as an ideal introduction to a by now forbiddingly expansive and continually expanding body of work … succeeds in reaching into the heart of his thinking to give us its fundamental questions and stakes, especially when it comes to our clinical practice: Why do we bother with psychoanalysis? How does it serve the aim of ensuring life is worth the effort?” – British Journal of Psychotherapy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Phillips is a psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English Department at the University of York. He is the author of several well-known volumes, all widely acclaimed, including On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored, Going Sane, Side Effects and recently On Kindness, co-written with historian Barbara Taylor, On Balance, Missing Out and One Way and Another.
CONTENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1. Welcome – A day with Adam Phillips at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy by Ron Taffel, Ph.D
Chapter 2. The magic of Winnicott: Playing and reality, and reality by Adam Phillips
Chapter 3. Morning Q&A
Chapter 4. An Interview with Adam Phillips
Chapter 5. Afternoon Q&A
Chapter 6. Commentaries by members of the faculty, graduates and candidates
Chapter 7. The Cure for Psychoanalysis by Adam Phillips
Chapter 8. Coda – A day with Adam Phillips at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy by Holly Levenkron, Director of Psychoanalytic Training
REFERENCES
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