A provocative collection of meditations on coupledom and its discontents that is "playful, brilliant ... profound ... keeps us faithful to the last page" (The New York Observer)--from the witty psychoanalyst and author of On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored.
Adam Phillips manages to unsettle one of our most dearly held ideals, that of the monogamous couple, by speculating upon the impulses that most threaten it--boredom, desire, and the tempting idea that erotic fulfillment might lie elsewhere. With 121 brilliant aphorisms, the witty, erudite psychoanalyst who gave us
On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored distills the urgent questions and knotty paradoxes behind our mating impulse, and reveals the centrality of monogamy to our notions of marriage, family, the self--in fact, to everything that matters.
The only truly monogamous relationship is the one we have with ourselves.
Every marriage is a blind date that makes you wonder what the alternatives are to a blind date.
There's nothing more scandalous than a happy marriage.
Author: Adam Phillips
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03/30/1999
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.43lbs
Size: 8.80h x 5.46w x 0.39d
ISBN: 9780679776178
About the AuthorADAM PHILLIPS is the author of
Winnicott; On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored; On Flirtation; and
Terror and Experts. Formerly the principal child psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London, he lives in England.