A selection of the most popular and relevant essays from Adam Phillips, the man New Yorker called 'Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer'

'Phillips's prose is poetic in the best sense: it is muscular, resonant, and thrums with a dark music that is all its own' John Banville

In the twenty essays gathered here, ranging across his entire oeuvre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips offers a vivid introduction to his discipline as well as his own unique thinking. Investigating subjects as diverse as desire, family, happiness, tickling, forgetting and even boredom, Phillips proves himself to be not only one of our most engaging writers but also a fascinating and provocative guide to our obsessions as human beings.