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All Topic Reviews A Cursing Brain?A Map of the MindAfter LacanAgainst AdaptationAgainst FreudAnalytic FreudAndré Green at the Squiggle FoundationAnger, Madness, and the DaimonicAnna FreudAnna Freud: A BiographyApproaching PsychoanalysisBadiouBecoming a SubjectBefore ForgivingBetween Emotion and CognitionBeyond GenderBeyond SexualityBiology of FreedomBoundaries and Boundary Violations in PsychoanalysisBuilding on BionCare of the PsycheCassandra's DaughterCherishmentConfusion of TonguesCrucial Choices, Crucial ChangesCulture and Conflict in Child and Adolescent Mental HealthDarwin's WormsDesert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1974)Dispatches from the Freud WarsDoes the Woman Exist?Dreaming and Other Involuntary MentationDreaming by the BookEnergy Psychology InteractiveEqualsErrant SelvesEthics and the Discovery of the UnconsciousEthics Case Book of the American Psychoanalytic AssociationFed with Tears -- Poisoned with MilkFeminism and Its DiscontentsForms of Intersubjectivity in Infant Reasearch and Adult TreatmentFour Lessons of PsychoanalysisFratricide in the Holy LandFreudFreudFreudFreudFreud and the Question of PseudoscienceFreud As PhilosopherFreud at 150Freud's AnswerFreud's WizardFundamentals of Psychoanalytic TechniqueGenes on the CouchGoing SaneHans BellmerHappiness, Death, and the Remainder of LifeHate and Love in Psychoanalytical InstitutionsHealing the Soul in the Age of the BrainHeinz KohutHeinz KohutHidden MindsHistory of ShitHope and Dread in PsychoanalysisImagination and Its PathologiesImagine There's No WomanIn Freud's TracksIn SessionIn the Floyd ArchivesIntimaciesIntimate RevoltIrrationalityIs Oedipus Online?Jacques LacanJacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of PsychoanalysisJung and the Making of Modern PsychologyJung Stripped BareKilling FreudLacanLacanLacanLacan and Contemporary FilmLacan in AmericaLacan TodayLacan's Seminar on AnxietyLawLearning from Our MistakesLove's ExecutionerMad Men and MedusasMale Female EmailMelanie KleinMemoirs of My Nervous IllnessMental SlaveryMind to MindMoral StealthMourning and ModernityMovies and the MindMurder in ByzantiumNew Studies of Old VillainsNocturnesNoir AnxietyOn Being Normal and Other DisordersOn BeliefOn IncestOn Not Being Able to SleepOn the Freud WatchOn the Way HomeOpen MindedOpera's Second DeathOvercoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and BehaviorsPhenomology & Lacan on Schizophrenia, After the Decade of the BrainPhilosophical Counselling and the UnconsciousPractical Psychoanalysis for Therapists and PatientsPsychiatry, Psychoanalysis, And The New Biology Of MindPsychoanalysis and Narrative MedicinePsychoanalysis and NeurosciencePsychoanalysis and the Philosophy of SciencePsychoanalysis as Biological SciencePsychoanalysis in FocusPsychology, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and the Politics of Human RelationshipsPsychotherapy As PraxisPutnam CampQuestions for FreudRe-Inventing the SymptomReading Seminar XXReinventing the SoulRelationalityRepressed SpacesRevolt, She SaidSecrets of the SoulSerious ShoppingSex on the CouchSexuationSigmund FreudSoul Murder RevisitedSpectral EvidenceSpirit, Mind, and BrainStrangers to OurselvesSubjective Experience and the Logic of the OtherSubjectivity and OthernessSubstance Abuse As SymptomSurrealist Painters and PoetsTaboo SubjectsTalk is Not EnoughThe Art of the SubjectThe Brain and the Inner WorldThe Cambridge Companion to LacanThe Challenge for Psychoanalysis and PsychotherapyThe Clinical LacanThe Colonization Of Psychic SpaceThe Condition of MadnessThe Couch and the TreeThe Cruelty of DepressionThe Dreams of InterpretationThe Fall Of An IconThe Freud EncyclopediaThe Freud WarsThe Fright of Real TearsThe Future of PsychoanalysisThe Gift of TherapyThe Heart & Soul of ChangeThe Knotted SubjectThe Last Good FreudianThe Mind According to ShakespeareThe Mythological UnconsciousThe New PsychoanalysisThe Power of FeelingsThe Psychoanalytic MovementThe Psychoanalytic MysticThe Psychoanalytic Study of the ChildThe Psychodynamics of Gender and Gender RoleThe Puppet and the DwarfThe Real World Guide to Psychotherapy PracticeThe Revolt of the PrimitiveThe Seminar of Moustafa SafouanThe Sense and Non-Sense of RevoltThe Shortest ShadowThe Social History of the UnconsciousThe Symmetry of GodThe Tragedy of the SelfThe UnsayableThe World of PerversionTherapeutic ActionTherapy's DelusionsTo Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the WorldTrauma and Human ExistenceTraumatizing TheoryUmbr(a)Understanding Dissidence and Controversy in the History of PsychoanalysisUnderstanding PsychoanalysisWalking HeadsWay Beyond FreudWhat Does a Woman Want?When the Body SpeaksWhere Do We Fall When We Fall in Love?Whose Freud?Why Psychoanalysis?Wilhelm ReichWinnicottWinnicott On the ChildWittgenstein on Freud and FrazerWittgenstein Reads FreudZizek
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 Review - Equalsby Adam Phillips Basic Books, 2002 Review by Havi Hannah Carel, Ph.D. Sep 16th 2002 (Volume 6, Issue 38) Equals is a collection
of essays, made up of three distinct parts: "Equals", "Under
Psychoanalysis" and "Characters". As such it suffers from an
unevenness in the quality of each part and its relevance to the overall idea of
the book, a problem far from alien to this format. The first part of the book
comprises a very good set
of essays examining the notion of equality, or rather the sources of
inequality, exploring the different attitudes we could take towards equality, a
notion central to human life on both a personal and political level. The
perambulation through various themes within this topic: political equality,
equality as democracy, equality in psychoanalysis, equality between various
kinds of partners: parent-child, lovers, patient-analyst etc. are all explored
in Phillips's usual astute style. The question of superiority in its relation
to power, and of care in relation to inequality is particularly important
within a psychoanalytic or therapeutic context. Patients enter psychoanalysis
with a democratic egalitarian ethos, but all of a sudden renounce that ethos by
endowing the analyst with unreasonable power based on their expectations and a
belief in the analyst's omnipotence and omniscience. How should the analyst
respond to this demand? What, then, is the basis for arguing that there is
equality in psychoanalytic relations, where one side pays and talks and the
other side is paid to listen? The idea of equality as "the legitimation,
if not celebration, of conflict" (p.11) is then explored in the last
chapter of the first part, "Against Inhibition". In this chapter
Phillips describes inhibition as the authoritarian suppression of the conflict
enabled by equality, a suppression expressed as an incapacity or lack of
permission (p. 65). As a result, we are distracted from the only freedom we
have, "the freedom to choose an unpredictable future for ourselves"
(p.73, grammar modified).
The second part of the book
is based on the more general theme of "Under Psychoanalysis", and
contains seven chapters of varying length, examining madness, the notions of
narrative and coherence in psychoanalysis, need and neediness, childhood and
memory, and the recognition/ misrecognition ambivalence. Several questions
arise while reading this part: firstly, Phillips argues that "it is not
our suffering we need to understand, it is our happiness" (pp.110-111),
but shortly afterwards argues that "there is nothing more essential to, or
about a person than his needs" (p.119). How do these two claims relate to
one another? If the frustration of needs creates suffering, then surely it is
suffering we should focus on rather than happiness. Secondly, Phillips argues
for an anti-essentialist position with respect to needs: needs have no known
essence, a need is something that is created in response to an initial stimulus
(p.122). But are needs not, at least initially, a fundamental force operating
universally? Are not nourishment, love and nurturing a condition for any form
of human development and well-being? And finally, Phillips sides with Ghent in
arguing that the unknown change is the optimal consequence of analytic
treatment. But this could, arguably, also be a change for the worse. If one
does not know what change they aspire to, and accept the openness of the
unknown, they must also accept the potential negative change: regression,
return to inhibition and suicide are all changes - but are they necessarily
desirable?
The third and final part of
the book is a collection of book reviews. This part lacks
a theme, its main problem being one of context: a book is not a collection of
essays, it must be something more in order to justify its format. And it is
this format that emphasises the trivial or the fragmented aspect of these
reviews, each of which surely had a respectable place within the pages of the London Review of Books. Within Equals, these reviews read as disjointed
pieces, and the psychoanalytic perspective from which Phillips is writing and
reading seems to narrow down to a commentary on whether the protagonists, real
or fictional, are 'gay', 'Jewish', or both. There is
little to be gleaned from reading this part of the book, which comes across as
somewhat trivial in the sense that it lacks a unifying theme or a question and
hence is disappointing. However, the first two
parts afford a valuable insight into the world of the analyst, exploring issues
in a non-trivial way. The book, therefore, has much to offer its readers, but
remains of uneven quality, and its end leaves the reader somewhat disappointed
and unmoved.
© Havi Carel 2002
Havi
Carel received her Ph.D. from at the Department of Philosophy, University
of Essex; her thesis was on the concept of death in Heidegger and Freud. She
teaches philosophy at Oxford Brookes University and at the University of Essex.
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