Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves.
ADAM PHILLIPSThe child..will try to make himself..independent of other people. .
More Adam Phillips Quotes
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To our grudge against our mothers; the way we never let our mothers off the hook for their not meeting our every need.
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Monogamy is a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to the minimum.
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We are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.
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Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be our most violent form of nostalgia.
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The whole notion of sanity may be an attempt to medicalize morality – to speak of the good in the language of health: to make us more accurate, more scientific in our wanting – but by the same token it becomes a form of moral blackmail.
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We are tyrannized by our blind spots, and by whatever it is about ourselves that we find unacceptable.
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The child can find out what the object ..might be only by finding ..obstacles to its access
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Excesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..
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To keep faith with recognition we have to stay recognizable.
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It is as if to say: if these are not valued – if these forms of wanting and feeling and speaking and doing – are not cultivated and encouraged and rewarded in the child, then the child will be mad.
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Transgression is a quest for solitude
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One thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life.
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The past influences everything and dictates nothing.
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People change, but there really are limits.
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Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.
ADAM PHILLIPS