From acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, a meditation on what we must give up to feel more alive.

To give up or not to give up?

The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple.

Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable.

There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment - an attempt to make a different future.

In On Giving Up, acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive?

A powerful exploration of the human capacity for renewal, as seen through Shakespeare and Freud
 
In this fresh investigation, Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips explore how the second chance has been an essential feature of the literary imagination and a promise so central to our existence that we try to reproduce it again and again. Innumerable stories, from the Homeric epics to the New Testament, and from Oedipus Rex to Hamlet, explore the realization or failure of second chances―outcomes that depend on accident, acts of will, or fate. Such stories let us repeatedly rehearse the experience of loss and recovery: to know the joy that comes with a renewal of love and pleasure and to face the pain that comes with realizing that some damage can never be undone.
 
Through a series of illuminating readings, the authors show how Shakespeare was the supreme virtuoso of the second chance and Freud was its supreme interpreter. Both Shakespeare and Freud believed that we can narrate our life stories as tales of transformation, of momentous shifts, constrained by time and place but often still possible. Ranging from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter’s Tale, and from D. W. Winnicott to Marcel Proust, the authors challenge readers to imagine how, as Phillips writes, “it is the mending that matters.”

The marginalisation of John Clare, despite renewed interest in Romanticism and the literature of madness, is still an enigma. Perhaps more than any other poet of the period, Clare has never found the contexts in which his poetry can be read. This important collection of new critical essays locates Clare's work from diverse points of view, identifying the obstacles to his reception as a major poet. It includes chapters on landscape and botany, Clare's politics, his madness, Clare and the critics, and a remarkable essay by Seamus Heaney on Clare's importance as a poetic precursor. This volume will be a landmark in the history of his reception, revealing the ways in which an appreciation of this unique poet revises the canon of Romantic and Victorian literature.

From acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, a meditation on what we must give up to feel more alive. To give up or not to give up? The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple. Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable. There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment - an attempt to make a different future. In On Giving Up, acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive? 'One of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson of our time' John Banville 'The best living essayist writing in English' John Gray

An outstanding photography book documenting a movement that rocked the world. Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism is a body of photographs that Syd Shelton produced for and about the British Rock Against Racism movement (RAR) of 1976-1981. For Shelton, this work was a socialist act, what he calls a "graphic argument," on behalf of marginalized lives. His practice of photographic activism began in 1973 when he was driven to document the socio cultural and political dynamics expressed on the streets of Sydney by urban Australian Aboriginal communities, the working class, and the architectural landscapes of these groups. Shelton's first solo show in 1975, "Working Class Heroes" at the Sydney Film-makers Cooperative, established his distinct activist eye. Shelton joined RAR in early 1977 on his return to England from Australia. He did so because he found his birthplace a more racist country than it had been when he left. This was marked by the increased political presence of the National Front, notably its gain of some 119,000 votes in the Greater London Council Elections of May 1977. Shelton, like millions of others, feared for the future of multi-cultural Britain. His contribution to RAR was to be on the London committee, to create graphic material with other RAR members such as the RAR publication "Temporary Hoarding," posters' badges and his photography-RAR did not have an official photographer. Shelton's instinctive need to document RAR-its events, contributors, and supporters-has resulted in the largest collection of images on the movement. Alongside his documentation of RAR, Shelton took photographs of what he calls "the contextual images," the lives and landscapes that were defined by others as "different," and that often fueled racist acts of violence by simply being. What is presented here are Shelton's authoritative visual statements as participant-photographer on the social tempo in Britain at this time and the activist potency of RAR. As collective activism, RAR's success was dependent on individual contributions to fuel the movement's activities across the country. This unique national, and eventually international, charge incorporated the visual dynamic of how Black and white RAR contributors and participants styled their bodies as another antagonistic tool against racism. These were acts of style activism-the making of an activist identity through the considered composition of clothes, accessories, hairstyles, makeup, and body language. Shelton's images prompt us to remember that the individuals at RAR carnivals, gigs, and demonstrations were the event-they were RAR. There are many versions of what RAR was and its legacy. Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism provides an auto/biographical telling of that historical moment. It reflects on how Shelton's work as a photographer contributed towards social change at a critical moment of political and racial tension in Britain.

Just coming off of Flash and looking for a guide? This book helps. A traditional pen-to-paper artists? This will smooth out that transition from paper to screen. Just starting out in the industry? Create quality studio work and get noticed quicker. Animate to Harmony takes the reader through Toon Boom's Animate software, teaching those new to the program how to create high-quality, 2D animation of all complexities. From scene set up to rendering, readers learn how to navigate Animate's interface and how to create 'toons that can be viewed on a multitude of formats. And while the main text focuses on Animate, Advanced Technique boxes throughout the book take the reader through the Pro and Harmony versions of the software, appealing to readers of all levels and with any of the three main Toon Boom products.

This reader brings together a selection of seminal papers by Christopher Bollas.

Essays such as "The Fascist State of Mind," "The Structure of Evil," and "The Functions of History" have established his position as one of the most significant cultural critics of our time. Also included are examples of his psychoanalytical writings, such as "The Transformational Object" and "Psychic Genera," that deepen and renew interest in unconscious creative processes. Two recent essays, "Character and Interformality" and "The Wisdom of the Dream" extend his work on aesthetics and the role of form in everyday life.
This is a collection of papers that will appeal to anyone interested in human experience and subjectivity.

This book examines the tension, caused by the conflict between poise and catastrophe, in the therapeutic relationship. It emphasizes positive contributions to growth of self made by seemingly pathological or disruptive movements within the therapy situation.

A TRANSFORMATIVE BOOK ABOUT THE LIVES WE WISH WE HAD AND WHAT THEY CAN TEACH US ABOUT WHO WE ARE
All of us lead two parallel lives: the one we are actively living, and the one we feel we should have had or might yet have. As hard as we try to exist in the moment, the unlived life is an inescapable presence, a shadow at our heels. And this itself can become the story of our lives: an elegy to unmet needs and sacrificed desires. We become haunted by the myth of our own potential, of what we have in ourselves to be or to do. And this can make of our lives a perpetual game of falling short.
But what happens if we remove the idea of failure from the equation? With his flair for graceful paradox, the acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips suggests that if we accept frustration as a way of outlining what we really want, satisfaction suddenly becomes possible. To crave a life without frustration is to crave a life without the potential to identify and accomplish our desires.
In "Missing Out," an elegant, compassionate, and absorbing book, Phillips draws deeply on his own clinical experience as well as on the works of Shakespeare and Freud, of D. W. Winnicott and William James, to suggest that frustration, not getting it, and getting away with it are all chapters in our unlived lives--and may be essential to the one fully lived.

Want to create studio-quality work and get noticed? Just coming off Flash and looking for a Toon Boom intro? Are you a traditional pencil-and-paper animator? From scene setup to the final render, learn how to navigate the Toon Boom interface to create animation that can be published on a variety of platforms and formats. Animate to Harmony guides you through Toon Boom's Animate, Animate Pro and Harmony programs, teaching you how to create high-quality 2D animation of all complexities. The main text focuses onfeatures that are common across all three programs while "Advanced Techniques" boxes throughout the book elaborate on Pro and Harmony features, appealing to all levels of experience with any of the three main Toon Boom products.

This reader brings together a selection of seminal papers by Christopher Bollas.

Essays such as "The Fascist State of Mind," "The Structure of Evil," and "The Functions of History" have established his position as one of the most significant cultural critics of our time. Also included are examples of his psychoanalytical writings, such as "The Transformational Object" and "Psychic Genera," that deepen and renew interest in unconscious creative processes. Two recent essays, "Character and Interformality" and "The Wisdom of the Dream" extend his work on aesthetics and the role of form in everyday life.
This is a collection of papers that will appeal to anyone interested in human experience and subjectivity.

The biography of Donald Winnicott, a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who spent nearly all of his professional life at Paddington Green Children's Hospital, London. His work and writing about children has been increasingly regarded as an influential contribution to psychoanalysis.

Some friends of ED books concentrate on more serious aspects of Flash - this one concentrates on the fun. Flash can be used for many purposes, but making visually stunning effects to impress your boss, your friends, and anyone who looks at your site is one of the most rewarding. friends of ED have scoured the web and the Flash community, discovering the most requested and popular Flash effects in action today. We have investigated the visual effects and actual design techniques that Flash beginners have been asking for. The visual inspiration and detailed explanations of how to recreate these effects are combined together in this book. The eight leading designers in this full color book take these effects apart, showing you how to adapt your basic Flash knowledge to achieve results exceeding anything you thought possible. The effects stay true to the tried and tested friends of ED design-centric approach, with full exercises and explanations for each effect. Topics include: ground-breaking site navigation; a dynamic MP3 jukebox; cartoon animation; and Flash math visual effects. All you need to use this book is a knowledge of the Flash MX interface, and some imagination. So sit back, relax, and open up your mind to the visual potential of Flash MX. As with all books from friends of ED our support is fast, friendly and free. Your queries will be passed onto the editors and authors who put the book together.

A collection of exceptional papers by Michael Eigen, selected and assembled by Adam Phillips, that represent 20 years of writing and 30 years of work. The papers examine the tension, caused by the conflict between poise and catastrophe, in the therapeutic relationship. This volume contains a thought-provoking introduction from Adam Phillips and includes introductory notes for the chapters and a detailed Afterword by Michael Eigen."Eigen is one of the dozen or so most interesting psychoanalysts writing today. "The Electrified Tightrope" presents him in his familiar function as scholar-healer; his speciality: the construction and reconstruction of the breathing, seeing, moving, electric, and, yes, electrifying self. For the mental health practitioner, what Eigen presents are a hundred points of entry. What may seem in our work dim, dismal, even worrisomely "disruptive moments" are show by him to be "necessary steps" in the "profound process by ego repair or formation." Writing from a base that includes institutional and clinical care as well as the private practice, he has much to say to workers everywhere: And how he writes Don't miss his Afterword or Adam Phillips' elegantly attuned introduction." -- Harold N. Boris"Michael Eigen's writings on psychoanalysis represent a unique clinical and theoretical contribution. Of the many psychoanalysts writing today, Eigen is one of the few who have captured in writing the emotional intensity of the analyst's encounter with himself as well as his patients. Not content to coast on the surface provided by a professional language, Eigen pushes psychoanalytic theory into the vortex of lived experience of anxiety and pain, but also hope. Even as he is enveloping his radical devotion to phenomenological reality in the Winnicottian tradition, Eigen refuses to throw out Freudian theory as he writes, "We do not know what to do with this multiplicity, but we are not free to evade it." Even when he is the theoretical virtuoso, he offers the reader a sense of one mind working to fathom another mind. And even as he conveys the struggle of analyst and patient to overcome the deadness of not feeling, he offers no facile rhetoric of authenticity, no sense of having the answer. It is hard to imagine any clinician or scholar who will not be moved by Eigen's writing to feel and understand the psychoanalytic project afresh." -- Jessica Benjamin( Previously published 1993 by Jason Aronson Inc)"

What is kindness? Does it make us happier? And does it have a place in a selfish world? Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor present an elegant, thoughtful and concise analysis of kindness in history, in life and in the modern world. Suggesting that acts of kindness occur when we are at our most open and honest, they ask why it is that our faith in kindness has been shaken - and why we are all too ready to believe that antagonism has taken its place.

Missing Out is a meditation on reality and opportunity by Adam Phillips, Britain's pre-eminent psychoanalyst. We all have two lives - the life we live and the life of our fantasies. But it is the life unlived - the person we have failed to be - that can trouble and even haunt us. In Missing Out acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips delves into the gap between who we are and who we are not, to discover whether not getting what we want may be the unlikely key to the fully lived life. With his trademark combination of open-minded enquiry and exhilarating argument, drawing primarily on the twin worlds of literature and psychoanalysis, Phillips will delight readers old and new in this much-anticipated book.

This book contains two brilliant essays by one of the foremost thinkers in the field of psychoanalysis. In the first essay, 'The Magic of Winnicott,' Adam Phillips makes clear the subtlety and wisdom of Winnicott's concept of play. In 'The Cure for Psychoanalysis' he works through psychoanalytic theories about cure and instructs us to take most seriously those that free the analyst and patient to wonder and to take pleasure in the unknowable adventure ahead of them. These two thought-provoking writings frame a discussion between the author and Edward Corrigan, analyst and friend, which offers an intimate portrait of two analysts in conversation, thoughtfully reflecting on traditions that inform Phillips' practice and prolific works. This record of 'A Day with Adam Phillips' at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York includes questions and commentaries which demonstrate the creative and open expression encouraged by and reflected in the practice of psychoanalysis itself.

The author is committed to psychoanalysis as part of a wider cultural conversation, and this unique collection of essays on a wide range of relatively unexplored subjects combines literary and philosophical commentary with vivid clinical vignettes.'Like Chekhov, Phillips writes as well as he doctors, and his fascination with the subtleties of human behaviour makes him a good storyteller.He has a welcome openness to the essential strangeness of every person; this alone is reason enough to read him.' Jane Mendelsohn, Guardian

'A couple is a conspiracy in search of a crime. Sex is often the closest they can get.' All the present controversies about the family are really discussions about monogamy. About what keeps people together and why they should stay together. Now, in a book of 121 aphorisms, Adam Phillips asks why we all believe in monogamy, and why we find it so difficult to think about. Everyone knows that most people, however much they may love their partner, are capable of loving and desiring more than one person at a time. It may be reassuring, but it is in fact very demanding -- and often cruel -- to assume that only one person can give us what we want. At least in sexual matters, sharing seems to go deeply against the grain. Monogamy is so much taken for granted as the foundation of the family and of family values that, as with anything that seems essential, we are very wary of being critical of it. But, as Adam Phillips suggests, it is surely worth wondering why the faithful couple has such a hold on our imagination, and how it has come to be such an ideal.

To talk about getting better - about wanting to change in ways that we might choose and prefer - is to talk about pursuing the life we want; in the full knowledge that our pictures of the life we want, of our version of a good life, come from or come out of what we have already experienced. (We write the sentences we write because of the sentences we have read.) How can we talk differently about how we might want to change, knowing that all change precipitates us into an uncertain future? In this companion book to On Wanting to Change, Adam Phillips explores how we might get better at talking about what it is to get better.