---
product_id: 35092165
title: "Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature Paperback – February 7, 2002"
brand: "adam phillips"
price: "R633"
currency: ZAR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 4
url: https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/35092165-promises-promises-essays-on-psychoanalysis-and-literature-paperback-february-7
store_origin: ZA
region: South Africa
---

# Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature Paperback – February 7, 2002

**Brand:** adam phillips
**Price:** R633
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature Paperback – February 7, 2002 by adam phillips
- **How much does it cost?** R633 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.za](https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/35092165-promises-promises-essays-on-psychoanalysis-and-literature-paperback-february-7)

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## Description

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## Images

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five Stars
*by R***T on May 6, 2016*

very good condition

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Showcases his breadth of interests, depth of careful but generous consideration
*by J***E on April 13, 2021*

Maybe his most engaging and accessible book and the best place to start. Serious engagement with the thinkers in question, not precious, thoughtfully seriously curious. A delight to read.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Provocative reading.......
*by D***R on August 25, 2001*

Adam Phillips takes the title of his book -- PROMISES, PROMISES -- from the last entry in this collection of essays, where he outlines the underlying theme of his collection. He says, "For me - for all sorts of reasons - there has always been only one category, literature, of which psychoanalysis becomes a part." He says in reading, one carries out a solitary act, a meditation of sorts. In reading literature -- whatever that is, and the lines have become clouded in recent years -- one engages a person who is not present in the room. On the other hand, psychoanalysis where one engages someone who is in the room is "literature restored to practicality -- the absolute antithesis of art for art's sake..." All these essays deal with some aspect of psychoanalysis and frequently Phillips uses the published word - 'literature' - to illustrate his point. Sometimes, an essay is a "talk" Phillips has given to a group, such as "On Translating a Person" originally presented as the Gwyn Jones Memorial Lecture in Cardiff Wales in 2000. In this essay, Phillips refers to a book by Raymond William entitled 'Materialism and Culture', about Welsh society. Because Phillips is from Wales (and Jewish), he is interested in how Williams "translates" the Welsh culture. Phillips says "What Williams is alerting us to is that what he calls the emergence of 'structures of feelings' depend upon the culture forms available for use. And each of those forms carries with it a history and a class consciousness." Phillips applies this idea to psychoanalysis where he says the individual has a "consciousness of history, a consciousness of alternatives, a consciousness of aspirations and possibilities: a wish for translation." He says, "Psychoanalyst don't think of themselves as translating people. The analyst interprets, reconstructs, questions, redescribes, returns the signifier..but he rarely describes what he does as translating the patient's material." Yet, the analyst is assisting the analysand to interpret his own life, to read his own text, to translate. In the end, who decides if the translation is a good one? Many of the essays are reviews of books-most biographies and a few autobiographies. A few works of non-fiction are included. I particularly enjoyed "Doing Heads" a review of Patrick McGrath's book 'Picador Book of New Gothic' which describes how horror stories moved from the exteral world to the internal world with the arrival of Edgar Allen Poe who dealt with "the terror inside." All of these essays explore the challenge of knowing the self, establishing an "identity" by reading and absorbing literature and/or by taking a more pragmatic approach and entering analysis. In the first, the writer who is not present facilitates the reader's interpretation and understanding. In the latter, the analyst who is present facilitates the act of reading and interpreting the self. In both situations, the reader is free to choose how and what s/he will interpret, absorb, and apply. Phillips seems to have concluded that while one can spend a lifetime attempting to know the self in the end the authentic self may be unknowable.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature
- In Writing
- Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

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*Product available on Desertcart South Africa*
*Store origin: ZA*
*Last updated: 2026-02-15*