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?
Review: Adam Phillips promotes curiosity, improvisation and conflict as antidotes to the deadening effects of absolute certainty . . . Phillips sidles up to his subjects, preferring the gentle mode of suggestion to the blunt force of argument. His writing has a way of sneaking up on you, like a subterranean force * New York Times *
A wise, generous book . . . There is a sense – quite a satisfying one, in fact – of circling around ideas, of each essay being ostensibly on a different theme from the others, but really treating the same concerns from a slightly different starting point . . . These essays won’t cure us, but they may make us curious * Washington Post *
This short, subtle and nuanced book is a fast and stimulating read: an account of how giving up is a form of progress, and how giving up is a form of loss * The Spectator *
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication date: 23/04/2025
