This book is a dazzling look at childhood curiosity and appetite - what inspires it, what kills it, and how it may be sustained. Growing up is a process of disillusionment, during which we shed the vitality of childhood - or so conventional wisdom has it. In The Beast in the Nursery, Adam Phillips shows why we are so keen to accept this reassuringly disappointing myth. He questions whether our first appetites can survive the acquisition of language, the donning of custom, the onset of education - all the ways we learn that the world is not simply what we want it to be. He offers a portrait of the conflict in all of us between the child and the realist, between the dreamer and the scientist, between the beast and the nursery. For Adam Phillips, our lives are livable only insofar as we do not lose what inspires us, but learn how to transform it into guiding knowledge.
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About the Author
Adam Phillips was formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He is the author of, most recently, Darwin's Worms, Promises, Promises, Equals and Houdini's Box, and he is the Series Editor of the new Penguin Freud translations.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Adam Phillips is a writer of aphoristic genius. By training and profession he is a child psychotherapist of considerable reputation - but to anyone who has read his books he is, first and foremost, a writer, a man who loves words and the play of words.
While much of his argument in this book, and in his other books, is densely wrought, it repays close attention - not just for the value of the argument itself (which is basically that we would enjoy life a whole lot more if we were not so willing to bury our childhood curiosity in the ordered flowerbeds of adulthood), but also for the flashes of deep insight and ironic observation that pepper his paragraphs. Often his most incisive, troubling, and liberating comments are reserved for the apparently lesser status of parentheses. "No one could be better at living your life than you," he brackets in the middle of a discussion about the promises and perils of psychoanalysis (mind you, his entire oeuvre is an ongoing discussion about the promises and perils of psychoanalysis, among other things). Of course, you think, and then realise that's really not something you tend to tell yourself every day - or, in fact, hardly ever.
Much of Phillips's writing has a similar effect of pointing out something about yourself or your life that should be blindingly obvious, or at least annoyingly familiar, but does, in fact, turn your view of yourself and your life pretty much on its head. And what's more, he does it in such lyrical and beautiful language.
The Beast in the Nursery is essential reading for any parent of young children. It's not easy, and it is often deeply troubling - but then, that's the whole point. You don't have to believe in Freud, you can love Lacan, you can wish you'd slept with Melanie Klein - it doesn't matter. Read Phillips. He is essential.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, an optimist out there
4 Jan 2000
By Karen Batres
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
This erudite author becomes even poetic in some of the text, making this book a joy to read. He gives a more positive, ideology-free reading of many of Freud's basic ideas and thoughts. While he does not advocate tossing theory into the wastebasket, he does enjoin the reader to go deeper into psychoanalytical tenets, to think less dogmatically about them, and to realize that theory is only an aid, not a mold into which each analysand must somehow be forced to fit. The reader must be familiar with psychoanalytical writing in order to get the full benefit from the book, however, since the ideas presented assume that the reader understands their background and meaning.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Artful essays on psychoanalysis and philosophy
1 Feb 1998
By Eileen Galen
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a collection of layered and complex writing by a clear and humane thinker -- and a wonderful writer. Phillips ranges widely, and cites inspired references from psychology (including his London practice), philosophy, and literature, and always with distinct purpose. Freud, Hanna Segal, H.G. Wells, Auden, Blake, Marion Milner, John Keats, D.W. Winnicott, and Melanie Klein (among others) are cited in this book, effectively. He's blazingly creative, more subtly political, and good-hearted -- and it shows. The book is a slower read than his earlier ones, but well worth it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Extraordinary Thinker Clearly Presents His Ideas
28 Aug 2001
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Adam Phillips' book THE BEAST IN THE NURSERY, is a collection of some of most compelling essays on psychoanalysis to be gathered together. His prose makes some of what might seem to be the most opaque ideas about pyschoanalysis appear shockingly lucid. He's a terrific writer and demands that you think for yourself as a reader.
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