Customer Reviews

Houdini's Box: The Art of Escape

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Both the fan of magic and the psychotherapist in me read Houdini's Box ---- with our feet propped up on the back porch railing, on a September Sunday afternoon.

The psychotherapist in me respects Adam Phillips' way of provoking thought without claiming any corner on "the truth." (If you like being introspective about the human psyche, this is a good one.) But mostly, the fan of magic enjoyed Phillips' take on Harry Houdini. There is little doubt that Houdini would be proud to be receiving so much attention 75 years after his death, but I think he would especially like becoming an archetype for the human condition.

If your taste runs toward mixing introspection with entertainment, and if you are curious to discover what you may have in common with "the great mystifyer," the two of me definitely recommend this book.

Houdini's Box author Adam Phillips digs up more than he can catalog in this slender volume of psychology on the notion of escape. The former child psychotherapist cogently dissects Houdini, "a man who was liberating himself only to be able to liberate himself again later." Phillips' probing of Houdini's background is a lively discourse and believable answer to what would provoke a man to continually perform ever-increasingly dangerous escapes.

The writing is full of pithy gems, such as: "What one is escaping from is inextricable from, if not defined by, what one is escaping to." But the book also feels incomplete at 177 pages. Just as the book warms up, the author suddenly fades away. Ironically, the last essay is on the reclusive poet, Emily Dickinson. Phillips begins, "When the poet Emily Dickinson died in 1886 at the age of fifty-five, most of her neighbors hadn't seen her for well over twenty years."

Phillips examination of escape, except for Houdini's profile, is done in a hurried fashion. The author only gave a cursory look at the psychological stones unearthed within the three profiles of Dickinson, a young girl, and a grown man. Perhaps Phillips' main goal was to provoke questions, which he does often and well. Thankfully, he does avoid glib conclusions. But a deeper understanding may have been gleaned if Phillips kept examining the dark treasures uncovered in the psyche, instead of escaping from them.

Bohdan Kot

....Psychotherapist Adam Phillips develops these themes in the context of Houdini's career, the attraction of his escapes for audiences, case histories such as those involving a five year-old girl who plays hide-and-seek in peculiar ways and a man who avoids women he is attracted to, mythology (Oedipus, Prometheus, Daedalus, Icarus, and Sisyphus), and literary characters (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Emily Dickinson).

The book's themes work best in the context of Houdini. The other examples provide context, but not nearly as much insight. I was particularly interested to learn that the story I had heard about Houdini's death was wrong. ....

In general, I found the book interesting, but found that it had some serious drawbacks in its structure and focus. For example, there is discussion about prostitution, pornography, and avoiding sexual relations that is loosely tied back to Houdini's skills in escape illusions. I found the connections tenuous, not well made, sometimes puzzling, and of little interest.

The discussions with patients are probably easy for a psychotherapist to follow, but I found them not very clear. I suspect that I would have enjoyed the book more without the patient sections.

At the same time, the mythological references are mainly of value to someone who doesn't know the stories. For those who do, those sections become long and somewhat tedious.

Basically, the book needed to be edited down further and to connect the dots more. At the same time, the section on Emily Dickinson could easily have been expanded.

If you know a lot of about psychological theories, this book will probably not add a lot for you. If you don't try very hard to avoid things, this book will probably not be very interesting. For those who strenuously avoid and would like to know more, this is a pretty low-key introduction into seeing the possible meaning behind patterns of avoidance through self-questioning.

What are the implications of your avoidance? Can you embrace what you care about in healthy ways? How well is your seeking out or avoiding behavior serving you and others?

Find ways to serve others, give love, and enjoy life!

Was there a time when this was the stuff I believed actually healed people? After an intensive period of reading books on the brain and its neurochemical 'ecosystem' capacities- this book was a bit of an escape for me. Reading it, one reminisces over the many previous and albeit superior volumes of this intellectual vein. This was, after all a relatively simple concept- the escape process- from either real or imagined stimuli, as rooted in some other inner perception of fear and a process that is repetitive and regenerative and eventually harmful to the psyche and relationships. Escape is itself the problem with the intial fear or memory, buried and unexamined. As previous reviewers have mentioned, the Houdini parts were both accessible and productive to what I suppossed was a theme- but how hard is it to pull Houdini into an escape metaphor? When the subjects stretched to some of the Doctor's patients and then to Emily Dickinsons late life retreat into solitude- things just got all wet.
Still, it is an interesting little novelty of a book and has an element of cautionary charm. There is also nothing in it that could be otherwise disputed or provocative. As many mental health professionals are exploring reverentially the biochemical, and evolutionary nature of consciousness, memory and mental illness- there is that notion of "Here we go again! Buying everything hook line and sinker." Hearing some of the voices of past-glorious psychoanalytical solemnity, was a bit of a kick!