Going Sane
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A probing exploration of the full meaning of sanity, conducted by British psychoanalyst and prolific author Phillips (Promises, Promises: Essays on Poetry and Psychoanalysis, 2002, etc.). Although sanity is a word "with virtually no scientific credibility," he writes in his preface, "it has become a necessary term." Explaining what it is necessary for is the task Phillips sets for himself in this erudite work. Musing aloud, dipping and diving into literary and psychiatric sources, he investigates his subject from all angles. In part one, he looks at how sanity has been defined and used by writers including Shakespeare, Lamb, Dickens and Orwell; how it has been treated by various psychoanalysts, especially Melanie Klein and her followers; and how it has been largely overlooked in the sciences. Madness, it seems, is a far more alluring subject and has received far more attention. In part two, the author struggles with the elusive nature of sanity by looking at its natural absence in two periods of life, infancy and adolescence, and then by viewing it through the prism of childhood autism, schizophrenia and depression. What these three mental conditions reveal, Phillips contends, is that a sane person is intelligible about his/her wants; lives within some consensus of shared desires, meanings and forms of exchange; and possesses an appropriate self-regard. Rather surprisingly, he ends this section by turning to a discussion of what happens to our ideas about sanity when money plays a role. In part three, Phillips spells out what sanity could usefully be. Distinguishing between the superficially sane and the deeply sane, he describes both what it would be like to be deeply sane and what that might involve in terms of doing, feeling and wanting. It is, in essence, a recipe for being a human being. Challenges the reader to reconsider the taken-for-granted notion that sanity is just another word for mental health. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Volumes have been dedicated to madness, but sanity is rarely mentioned. We can define the mad, but how do we classify the sane? In Going Sane, psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips delves deep into history, philosophy, literature and his own experiences to address questions that we rarely ask about ourselves, taking us on an engrossing journey in which we learn many things - including some of what it takes to be happy in the modern world.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In Going Sane, Adam Phillips skilfully marshals a wide cast from literature and the literature of psychology in order to examine the many headed and currently vague notion of sanity.
How is the term used? Why is the term used? Does sanity encompass madness or exclude it?
Opening with a sceptical voice, he considers ideas such as the misuse of the word by The Party in Orwell's 1984 and Laing's consideration of madness as a rational response to circumstances.
Further on, we're challenged to regard the difficulties of an idea of sane sex and the programmed madness of adolescence.
As the book progresses, Phillips asserts his own voice more strongly, finishing with his idea of a sane life; perhaps how a life might be sane, but at least in how the thing might be recognised.
Even while arguing forcefully and eloquently, Phillips still manages to avoid being over prescriptive; his voice is too secular for that. In any case, he insists (in the introduction) that his ideas are there as a challenge.
If you're up for such a challenge and especially if you're interested in where psychology meets philosophy, then this book is for you.
How is the term used? Why is the term used? Does sanity encompass madness or exclude it?
Opening with a sceptical voice, he considers ideas such as the misuse of the word by The Party in Orwell's 1984 and Laing's consideration of madness as a rational response to circumstances.
Further on, we're challenged to regard the difficulties of an idea of sane sex and the programmed madness of adolescence.
As the book progresses, Phillips asserts his own voice more strongly, finishing with his idea of a sane life; perhaps how a life might be sane, but at least in how the thing might be recognised.
Even while arguing forcefully and eloquently, Phillips still manages to avoid being over prescriptive; his voice is too secular for that. In any case, he insists (in the introduction) that his ideas are there as a challenge.
If you're up for such a challenge and especially if you're interested in where psychology meets philosophy, then this book is for you.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my first exposure to Adam Phillips. It took me a while to get into this book and then suddenly it gripped me and didn't let go till I'd finished. Phillips is a brilliant writer and must be a brilliant man. Since reading this I have tried to find as much of his stuff as I can and every time I finish one of his books I go looking for another - he's that good. Not that he is interested in being 'good' as much as he is interested in being kind, dignified, perceptive, honest and thorough. This is a body of work that replaces anti-Freudianisms with a re-positioning of Freudian thinking at the centre of our everyday lives and pre-occupations. Above all Phillips is determined to expose our humiliations and repair them with a language and a way of thinking about ourselves that preserves or perhaps resurrects our dignity as something worth protecting and nurturing. A thought provoking, gentle, passionate and ultimately inspiring book for anyone feeling weary.
30 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This insightful book picks up on the fact that though people talk,and have done for millenia,incessantly about madness as something easily recognisable and identifiable, no one has ever really defined what sanity is. Rather, it is described as the opposite of madness, which is so non-specific as to be useless. Phillips skillfully weaves a narrative as entertaining as it is thought-provoking in charting the idea of sanity and trying to pin its meaning down. In the final chapter Phillips formulates a definition of sanity to which, if we're open-minded enough, we may aspire to.
Despite this, the book is not a self-help manual. It is much more sophisticated and far less didactic. Phillips rigourously backs up his arguments and musings with evidence and ultimately provokes us into thinking about what madness is, whose interests its works in and how we can cope with the conflicting desires we are made of (his thesis is informed by Freud). In essence, Phillips's is a sane and measured voice calling for a realistic definition of sanity that may help us stay sane in an insane world. Overall, a stimulating and rewarding read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Potential waffle
I am afraid I am going to have to agree with the negative reviewers here. I had difficulty seeing anything coherently persuasive in the book, largely because it lacked any... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2009 by E. Mills
You'd have to be mad to read Going Sane
Finishing this book was an achievement and a relief. To say is it vague is an understatement. I get the impression the author has spent little time researching and writing this... Read more
Published on 7 Dec 2007 by Grey
A bit academic
I like Adam Phillips' writing generally, however I found this book slightly disappointing as the first part of this book reads more like an academic paper as he spends more time... Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2007 by A.S.
Hard going
I picked up Going Sane having read newspaper interviews with Adam Phillips and been intrigued. Sadly the book infuriated me and my husband had to put up with my continual... Read more
Published on 7 Dec 2006 by Karen Loasby
Disapearing up its own arse backwards
I thought this was an apalling book. What is it about Therapists that they think they can construct the most impossible and fantastic theories about human behaviour on the... Read more
Published on 31 Oct 2005 by Edwin
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