The Life You Want

Adam Phillips, the foremost psychoanalytic writer of our time, plays with ideas about the lives we want.

Where do we get ideas about the kinds of lives we want? What do we fail to do about actually getting them—and why do our ideas so often fail to satisfy us in the end?

Ever curious, sympathetic, and perceptive, Adam Phillips uses both psychoanalytic and literary approaches to show that we are obsessed with the idea of our lives being ones we want and enjoy rather than merely endure, tolerat...