Unforbidden Pleasures

In his dazzling new book Adam Phillips takes Oscar Wilde as a springboard for a deep dive into the meanings and importance of the Unforbidden, from the fall of our 'first parents' Adam and Eve to the work of the great twentieth-century psychoanalytic thinkers.

Unforbidden pleasures, he argues, are always the ones we tend not to think about, yet when you look into it, it is probable that we get as much pleasure, if not more, from them. And we may have underestimated just how restricted our restrictiveness, in thrall to the forbidden and its rules, may make us.

The most interestingly subversive meditation on modern life I have read for many years... Phillips ranges over a wide field, including reflections on Hamlet and the tyrannical power of conscience. Elegant, forceful and rich in insight, this is a book that can be read again and again

New Statesman - Books of the Year 2015

About Adam Phillips

Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently On Giving Up, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, In Writing, Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • ISBN: 9780241964095
  • Length: 208 pages
  • Price: £4.99
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