Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Product Description

We all have two lives - the life we live and the life of our fantasies. But it is the life unlived - the person we have failed to be - that can trouble and even haunt us. In Missing Out acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips delves into the gap between who we are and who we are not, to discover whether not getting what we want may be the unlikely key to the fully lived life.

'Peppered with the kind of insights that make you scrawl 'yes!' in the margins on almost every page . . . Glimpses of the real, true, messy and never knowable human heart.' Independent

'A fascinating book, very illuminating.' Guardian

'Through writers such as Thoreau, Greene, Huxley and Shakespeare, and through the work of psychoanalytic theorists, Phillips identifies the seductive promises of satisfaction that mostly result in frustration and shows how we 'learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like'.' The Times

'Subtle and powerful.' John Gray, Prospect

'Following Phillips' sentences is like watching a master-magician at work.' Daily Telegraph

'A manifesto for life lived without illusions.' Financial Times