On Balance

On Balance

Summary

In this absorbing and provocative new book from one of Britain's most elegant and original prose stylists, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips addresses a variety of urgent concerns - many centred around the idea of balance.

When might we know that enough is enough? Does the road of excess ever lead to the palace of wisdom? What is the role of the parent, the teacher and of psychoanalysis itself in the development of children's minds? Should we be happy, or is there something better we can be? And what can we learn from the tales of Jack and the Beanstalk or Cinderella?

With his trademark combination of open-minded enquiry and exhilarating argument, drawing primarily on the twin worlds of literature and psychoanalysis, Adam Phillips will delight readers old and new in this much anticipated new book.

Reviews

  • The best living essayist writing in English
    John Gray

About the author

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 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.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more