Customer Reviews

On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The essays were more academic than I'd anticipated and I think they presuppose a working knowledge of Freud and psychoanalytic theory. I skipped around to the ones that interested me, meaning I didn't feel like reading all of them.

I've got an advanced degree in psychology; I understand from where this book comes and I thought it was just fine. Smart, worth looking at, but not as "nothing else like this" as the reviews seem to indicate.

Worth mentioning: Phillips is a child psychologist and his anecdotes, from his own practice, are about children.

Four stars for intelligence.

Not only is this book rife with insights, it is also written with tenderness and the prose are crystal clean.

My background is more in theory. But I was struck by how plainspoken and easy to understand Phillips is here. --Jargon-free and straightforward. You certainly don't have to be a rocket scientist to follow him.

Personally, I feel just a little bit happier in my life for having read this book. It is profoundly sane. And great fun.

Adam Phillips writing is extremely thought-provoking, though a little more academic than I'd expected. Also, another reviewer has written that a more than fundamental knowledge of Freud's philosophies are important before tackling Mr. Phillips' text. I agree. It's been fifteen years since I've read Freud, so the memory was a little rusty.

From someone who never reads philosophy, this really held my interest. Time well spent...

I picked this out due to an excerpt in my copy of the Faber Book of Science- also a high recommend, p.s. Wanted if for the chapter on worrying which was excerpted- a magnificent chapter that touches on hunting, etymology, and Charles Dickens. Also had high hopes for the chapter on boredom, which were met. That is a very stimulating (as in thought stimulating) chapter. The tickling chapter was the only letdown so far. The 3 pages there are a good start, but he just gave up on it. I anticipated a thorough insight into adult tickling erotica, such as who develops this fetish and why, but there is only a brief few notes on tickling in children. I suppose he never even thought of the topic as one that pertains to adults...And be sure to start at the Preface. He psycho-analyses psycho-analysis, puts psychology right on the couch and gets into its head, its inner secret thoughts. High comedy and high-brow and highly worth it. Great noteworthy read overall. My margins are full of scribblings.

It should be a good book for a person who has psychology or related background but not for a person who doesn't have the background. The writing is little bit annoying. Most of time, I was lost in the long, unnecessarily complicate wording.

new and creative vehicle for teaching/exploring analytic thought--the essay--similar in style to Yolam's "Love's Executioner"

This book is a great buy totally the best.