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On Wanting to Change
From the UK's foremost literary psychoanalyst, a dazzling new book on the universal urge to change our lives.
We live in a world in which we are invited to change - to become our best selves, through politics, or fitness, or diet, or therapy.
We change all the time - growing older and older - and how we think about change changes over time too.
We want to think of our lives as progress myths - as narratives of positive personal growth - at the same time as we inevitably age and suffer setbacks.
So there are the stories we tell about change, and there are the changes we actually make - and they don't always go, or come, together . . .
This sparkling book is about that fact.
We live in a world in which we are invited to change - to become our best selves, through politics, or fitness, or diet, or therapy.
We change all the time - growing older and older - and how we think about change changes over time too.
We want to think of our lives as progress myths - as narratives of positive personal growth - at the same time as we inevitably age and suffer setbacks.
So there are the stories we tell about change, and there are the changes we actually make - and they don't always go, or come, together . . .
This sparkling book is about that fact.
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2021
81 people are currently reading
908 people want to read
About the author
Adam Phillips
130 books706 followersAdam Phillips is a British psychotherapist and essayist.
Since 2003 he has been the general editor of the new Penguin Modern Classics translations of Sigmund Freud. He is also a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.
Phillips was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1954, the child of second-generation Polish Jews. He grew up as part of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins and describes his parents as "very consciously Jewish but not believing". As a child, his first interest was the study of tropical birds and it was not until adolescence that he developed an interest in literature. He went on to study English at St John's College, Oxford, graduating with a third class degree. His defining influences are literary – he was inspired to become a psychoanalyst after reading Carl Jung's autobiography and he has always believed psychoanalysis to be closer to poetry than medicine.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
Phillips is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. He has been described by The Times as "the Martin Amis of British psychoanalysis" for his "brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling" work; and by John Banville as "one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson of our time."
Since 2003 he has been the general editor of the new Penguin Modern Classics translations of Sigmund Freud. He is also a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.
Phillips was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1954, the child of second-generation Polish Jews. He grew up as part of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins and describes his parents as "very consciously Jewish but not believing". As a child, his first interest was the study of tropical birds and it was not until adolescence that he developed an interest in literature. He went on to study English at St John's College, Oxford, graduating with a third class degree. His defining influences are literary – he was inspired to become a psychoanalyst after reading Carl Jung's autobiography and he has always believed psychoanalysis to be closer to poetry than medicine.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
Phillips is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. He has been described by The Times as "the Martin Amis of British psychoanalysis" for his "brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling" work; and by John Banville as "one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson of our time."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
April 25, 2024
Sometimes I will start a book feeling I have a pretty good idea what it will be about. But when this one started talking about conversion experiences and desires I was put off-balance. I thought, wait a second, I wasn’t expecting conversion, I thought we were talking about change. Except, of course, what is it to want to change other than to become what you currently are not, and, well, how is that not a kind of conversion? Which is the other thing that can be a bit annoying – when I realise there has been no sleight of hand involved in putting me off balance, nor that the discussion of religious conversion the distraction I might have otherwise anticipated, but that all of this should have been much more obvious from the start. All the same, I was put off-balance.
I think what I rebelled against when being told wanting change was about conversion was that I think of conversion as a complete transformation – and I’m not sure that is what people normally mean when they say they want something in their lives to change. You know, you might want to get another job, find a new partner, move to another city or country, learn how to play chess or meditate. But we generally don’t think of these as being examples of conversion experiences – in the way that if we were to wake up one morning and find ourselves an animist or a socialist might be. The changes in the first list are often not made with the conscious intention of becoming a fundamentally different type of person to who we already are, rather they are often made with the intention that we will become ‘more like ourself’ or our ‘true selves’. “If only I lived on the Sunshine Coast, I could finally be me.” Whereas conversion experiences like becoming a Christian or Hindu don’t feel like we have chosen them, so much, as we’ve been chosen by them. I’m becoming increasingly what Bourdieu referred to as a Pascalian, someone who believes that our social situation forms and structures us much more than we can bring ourselves to believe. My ex-wife was always very keen to have epiphanies of one kind or another. But I doubt she actually ever wanted a conversion experience. For her, I guess, she was after what the author calls here ‘seeing with new eyes’ – but given Paul is the first of the converts and his experience was the first use of epiphany, the conversion aspect of an epiphany cannot be ignored. All of which is likely to be made even more confusing if moving to the Sunshine Coast might prove to have a more lasting change on us than a sudden epiphany and conversion, where moving provides consequences we might never have considered or even thought possible. All change changes us, but change is only recognisable in amongst the sameness.
Which also brings us to the idea that conversions are not as simple as we sometimes think they might be – not even deeply felt religious conversions. Another book I read recently, Eagleton’s The Real Thing, made the point that there are more things that stay the same after a revolution than that change. This is hardly different from that saying, ‘wherever you go, there you are’. And, naturally enough, such a sentiment is the opposite to what I was just arguing, and so almost definitely must have a kernel of truth in it. We are unreliable witnesses of our own lives. We frequently misunderstand what we desire, what will make our lives better.
What this author does not do, as much as I might have expected him to, was to talk about how capitalism is fundamentally premised on the idea of thwarted desire. And desire is always the driving force behind our felt need for change (I’m being tautological here, but hopefully with a purpose). We desire what we do not have, in the belief that if we were to get what we do not have we will become what we currently are not but rather want to become. Capitalism’s need for a permanent purchasing class is required since it helps drive production and consumption and this in turn requires a permanent desire-producing industry finding links to the identities we wish we had and to objects and experiences that can be purchased, used, discarded and replaced with new objects of desire. Here the stress is placed on the ‘wanting’ from the title of this book, the desire, and the manipulative deception involved in the underlying premise that this desire will never be realised, and, in fact, is never intended to be realised, since the system’s continued health depends upon this desire being endlessly thwarted.
The problem doesn’t stop there. The last century was scarred by regimes that wanted to convert entire nations so that ‘a new man’ might flourish. This was premised upon what Bauman called ‘hygiene tasks’, realised in the great conversion machines of either death camps or gulags. Hygiene is being used in the sense of ‘ethnic cleansing’ – that is, once enough of them have been removed, the world will be a better, safer place. We will have achieved true liberation. We fool ourselves that these hygiene tasks have been relegated to history.
As we are currently witnessing in Gaza, and taking the Israelis at their word, they need to kill enough of those who hate them so that they can finally negotiate peace with those who love them. This means we have no option to negotiate settlements anywhere, since all change must first involve the conversion of our enemies into ourselves. Before we can negotiate, they must become identical to us. Otherwise, death is the only option available. Here the ‘wanting’ of change is not change for us, but change in them, they must change or die. The 4.5 million people murdered across the Middle East following 9/11 according to a recent report by Brown University also fit this category – our desire for change justifies any atrocity and is the motive power of our vengeance.
This is a book where psychoanalysis provides the undercurrent. And so, sublimated desires, particularly displaced sexual desires, play an important role here, not least in deluding us about the true nature of ourselves. This is not merely in our relationships with other people, you know, hidden homosexual desires that have us being cruel to our heterosexual partners, but also the hidden drives behind those other life partnerships we have, with books or work or art or sport, that similarly serve as means to repress our guilty subconsciouses.
I don’t really see myself as a follower of psychoanalysis, or Freud for that matter, but I do think Freud’s ideas of repressed desires is a very useful one to play with. Particularly if we think we want change in our lives. All desire is a desiring after, but if the underlying motivation of our desire is hidden from us, and almost must remain hidden by definition, as Freud asserts, then what is it to want change? This in no way is me saying we should seek stasis – that isn’t even an option open to us – but again, notice that the focus is again placed on the desire, rather than on the ‘change’ per se – so who is it doing the wanting? Which part of us wants this? And do we have any control here or are we automatons to our desires?
The worst forms of ‘wanting change’ are those times when we don’t really want change at all, but are confronted by a new reality – and when we are being asked to choose between ‘least worst’ options. Here the western idea of Buddhism, the reconciling of oneself to change, of letting oneself go in seeking acceptance, probably seems appealing. And as appealing as it seems, I’ve never been able to achieve this form of nirvana. For me, underlying everything, and again, contrary to so much of what I said as I started this review, I feel it is almost impossible to not feel devoid of agentic power in my life, maybe not in total control, but still an agent and not an object. I acknowledge that my surroundings do so much to determine my life, and if sociology has taught me anything, it has taught me to try to notice the options I would otherwise assume were not available to me due to my habits and dispositions, but even so, I feel there are choices to be made and that often I’m the one making them, not the structures around me only, or my repressed desires.
Right – this review is now about 1400 words, and really I wouldn’t have anticipated writing any of them in a review when I started reading this book. The book is short and powerful – I can’t help but recommend it.
I think what I rebelled against when being told wanting change was about conversion was that I think of conversion as a complete transformation – and I’m not sure that is what people normally mean when they say they want something in their lives to change. You know, you might want to get another job, find a new partner, move to another city or country, learn how to play chess or meditate. But we generally don’t think of these as being examples of conversion experiences – in the way that if we were to wake up one morning and find ourselves an animist or a socialist might be. The changes in the first list are often not made with the conscious intention of becoming a fundamentally different type of person to who we already are, rather they are often made with the intention that we will become ‘more like ourself’ or our ‘true selves’. “If only I lived on the Sunshine Coast, I could finally be me.” Whereas conversion experiences like becoming a Christian or Hindu don’t feel like we have chosen them, so much, as we’ve been chosen by them. I’m becoming increasingly what Bourdieu referred to as a Pascalian, someone who believes that our social situation forms and structures us much more than we can bring ourselves to believe. My ex-wife was always very keen to have epiphanies of one kind or another. But I doubt she actually ever wanted a conversion experience. For her, I guess, she was after what the author calls here ‘seeing with new eyes’ – but given Paul is the first of the converts and his experience was the first use of epiphany, the conversion aspect of an epiphany cannot be ignored. All of which is likely to be made even more confusing if moving to the Sunshine Coast might prove to have a more lasting change on us than a sudden epiphany and conversion, where moving provides consequences we might never have considered or even thought possible. All change changes us, but change is only recognisable in amongst the sameness.
Which also brings us to the idea that conversions are not as simple as we sometimes think they might be – not even deeply felt religious conversions. Another book I read recently, Eagleton’s The Real Thing, made the point that there are more things that stay the same after a revolution than that change. This is hardly different from that saying, ‘wherever you go, there you are’. And, naturally enough, such a sentiment is the opposite to what I was just arguing, and so almost definitely must have a kernel of truth in it. We are unreliable witnesses of our own lives. We frequently misunderstand what we desire, what will make our lives better.
What this author does not do, as much as I might have expected him to, was to talk about how capitalism is fundamentally premised on the idea of thwarted desire. And desire is always the driving force behind our felt need for change (I’m being tautological here, but hopefully with a purpose). We desire what we do not have, in the belief that if we were to get what we do not have we will become what we currently are not but rather want to become. Capitalism’s need for a permanent purchasing class is required since it helps drive production and consumption and this in turn requires a permanent desire-producing industry finding links to the identities we wish we had and to objects and experiences that can be purchased, used, discarded and replaced with new objects of desire. Here the stress is placed on the ‘wanting’ from the title of this book, the desire, and the manipulative deception involved in the underlying premise that this desire will never be realised, and, in fact, is never intended to be realised, since the system’s continued health depends upon this desire being endlessly thwarted.
The problem doesn’t stop there. The last century was scarred by regimes that wanted to convert entire nations so that ‘a new man’ might flourish. This was premised upon what Bauman called ‘hygiene tasks’, realised in the great conversion machines of either death camps or gulags. Hygiene is being used in the sense of ‘ethnic cleansing’ – that is, once enough of them have been removed, the world will be a better, safer place. We will have achieved true liberation. We fool ourselves that these hygiene tasks have been relegated to history.
As we are currently witnessing in Gaza, and taking the Israelis at their word, they need to kill enough of those who hate them so that they can finally negotiate peace with those who love them. This means we have no option to negotiate settlements anywhere, since all change must first involve the conversion of our enemies into ourselves. Before we can negotiate, they must become identical to us. Otherwise, death is the only option available. Here the ‘wanting’ of change is not change for us, but change in them, they must change or die. The 4.5 million people murdered across the Middle East following 9/11 according to a recent report by Brown University also fit this category – our desire for change justifies any atrocity and is the motive power of our vengeance.
This is a book where psychoanalysis provides the undercurrent. And so, sublimated desires, particularly displaced sexual desires, play an important role here, not least in deluding us about the true nature of ourselves. This is not merely in our relationships with other people, you know, hidden homosexual desires that have us being cruel to our heterosexual partners, but also the hidden drives behind those other life partnerships we have, with books or work or art or sport, that similarly serve as means to repress our guilty subconsciouses.
I don’t really see myself as a follower of psychoanalysis, or Freud for that matter, but I do think Freud’s ideas of repressed desires is a very useful one to play with. Particularly if we think we want change in our lives. All desire is a desiring after, but if the underlying motivation of our desire is hidden from us, and almost must remain hidden by definition, as Freud asserts, then what is it to want change? This in no way is me saying we should seek stasis – that isn’t even an option open to us – but again, notice that the focus is again placed on the desire, rather than on the ‘change’ per se – so who is it doing the wanting? Which part of us wants this? And do we have any control here or are we automatons to our desires?
The worst forms of ‘wanting change’ are those times when we don’t really want change at all, but are confronted by a new reality – and when we are being asked to choose between ‘least worst’ options. Here the western idea of Buddhism, the reconciling of oneself to change, of letting oneself go in seeking acceptance, probably seems appealing. And as appealing as it seems, I’ve never been able to achieve this form of nirvana. For me, underlying everything, and again, contrary to so much of what I said as I started this review, I feel it is almost impossible to not feel devoid of agentic power in my life, maybe not in total control, but still an agent and not an object. I acknowledge that my surroundings do so much to determine my life, and if sociology has taught me anything, it has taught me to try to notice the options I would otherwise assume were not available to me due to my habits and dispositions, but even so, I feel there are choices to be made and that often I’m the one making them, not the structures around me only, or my repressed desires.
Right – this review is now about 1400 words, and really I wouldn’t have anticipated writing any of them in a review when I started reading this book. The book is short and powerful – I can’t help but recommend it.
January 13, 2023
Much of this book was sloppily written in a certain way that strives to summon an appearance of wisdom or depth -- this was frustrating. But I'd say there was one truly interesting idea that came from this sloppiness, and moreover, this book might be serve as a nice introduction to some basics of psychoanalytic thought for those who have never encountered it before. The sloppy way of writing, which I so dislike, may be characterized as thus: the author latches onto a familiar term (in this case, it is "conversion," as found in the paradigm cases of religious conversion) and applies it left and right, in metaphoric and unsystematic ways, but under a tone of writing that makes it seem as if literal or earnest claims are bring made. For example, the author talks about a change in heart from trusting a friend with a different outlook than ourselves, and a change in being from a severe traumatic experience, as cases of conversion, in the same sense as conversion as found in conversion therapy. But clearly there are very different phenomena found across these three cases; a change in heart likely is voluntary and more literally described as an acquisition of new beliefs which are nevertheless consistent with previous beliefs; change from trauma may be described, in contrast, as a disruption in patterns of one's pre-reflective ways of emotionally responding to certain types of situations; and change from conversion therapy may be described as an adjustment in beliefs and values through tactics of brainwashing or propaganda. By calling them all "conversion" we miss out on these differences; and the author calls them conversion in such a way as if this is the end-all-be-all explanation of the nature of these phenomena, which stops inquiry.
Of course, it can be fertile, methodologically, to employ metaphors or simplifying models, for the sake of creating an entrypoint for investigating an otherwise very abstract or complex phenomenon. But this is most fertile if a thinker has a preliminary idea of why this metaphor or model is helpful; for example, the thinker should have evidence for that there is some underlying common denominator (e.g., shared conditions or factors in the causal history of the phenomena; shared functions or roles the phenomena play in their respective domains), and this provides reason for drawing a metaphor or analogy. Moreover, it's important to always draw such metaphors with humility; this is just a starting point, and it should inspire rather than stop inquiry. Unfortunately, Phillips fails on these measures. He calls many diverse phenomena matters of "conversion" willy-nilly, without any apparent justificatory grounds; and he writes in an authoritative manner which doesn't welcome further inquiry.
There was only one metaphor that Phillips drew, which I found particularly fertile. Phillips re-describes the traditional Freudian term sublimation as conversion. Sublimation refers to the psychological processes by which a certain desire, for a certain outcome or end, we start off with is transformed into a new desire, for a different outcome or end -- where this transformation is made possible because some over psychological tension or lack, which is the essence of and explains the first desire, turns out to be just as, or even more, satisfied or resolved by the outcome/end of the second desire. For example, one might be lonely and desire to be immersed in conversation with others, and sublimates this desire under the activity of writing (if writing scratches the same overall itch that conversation with others does). (Most of Freud's examples are about sex: we sublimate our sexual drives under all the various socially acceptable activities that we find pleasurable).
Phillips suggests that we may regard all of our desires today as at least partially influenced by processes of sublimation. This seems right. There are always social pressures (e.g., what desires are acceptable to pursue, or that are ethically proper to have), material limitations (which desires are not futile given our material circumstances), and personal interests (what desires are most easy to pursue; which, if we held them, but paint a picture of ourselves that suits our higher order desires). (Some side-thoughts: I think a major limitation of the Freudian tradition is that its ontology of psychological types does not admit of indeterminate psychological states (even unconscious thoughts and desires are supposedly propositionally structured as conscious ones are). If we allow for indeterminate unconscious emotions, affects, or impulses towards some overall end which is indeterminate - then we can see how such social, material, and personal factors always influence what we take our own desires to be, which in effect, might be understood as an interpretation of these indeterminate unconscious affects).
This automatic socially/materially determined sort of sublimation happens all the time; perhaps it is better to simply describe it as the social/material determination of desire. It is interesting to appreciate the contrast between this, and another kind of sublimation that is driven by deliberate planning or scheming. Here Phillip's metaphor drawing works really well. Let's think about sublimation as a matter of conversion. An essential element of religious conversion (which is the paradigm or most literal case) is that a previous, important state of being is annihilated and replaced by a crucially different state. Drawing this metaphor highlights how in sublimation, the former and successor desires are crucially different; we may even describe them as wholly different, insofar as they involve entirely independent activities, which may be located in very distant domains (where distance is measured by how related they are by virtue of the materials they involve, or the roles they serve in society as a whole).
This indicates that contemplation of the processes of sublimation might help us navigate our psychological lives and transcend suffering; if there is a desire that gives a person a lot of grief, they could focus on figuring out either (1) what generalized desire might be taken as more fundamental, from which this particular desire stems; and then look for a different particular desire that could also stem out from this generalized desire, or (2) what different desires seem to scratch the same itch as this particular one, regardless of whether these different desires are more general, more specific, or lateral to the first desire.
But one can think about and understand this point within 10 pages of writing. It is quite silly, how much space Phillips takes in waxing about a lot of unsystematic and unhelpful analogies and metaphors, in an authoritative voice. I hope not too many readers take him seriously; I could imagine someone taking him seriously, getting confused by his (nonsensical) points, and wasting time trying to figure these out. I got to this book in the first place because a friend let me know that it is not quite self-help but is rather more theoretical and nevertheless is as juicy and fun to read as self-help. I don't feel this way, and if this is 'better' than most self-help out there, I don't want to read books in that literature.
Of course, it can be fertile, methodologically, to employ metaphors or simplifying models, for the sake of creating an entrypoint for investigating an otherwise very abstract or complex phenomenon. But this is most fertile if a thinker has a preliminary idea of why this metaphor or model is helpful; for example, the thinker should have evidence for that there is some underlying common denominator (e.g., shared conditions or factors in the causal history of the phenomena; shared functions or roles the phenomena play in their respective domains), and this provides reason for drawing a metaphor or analogy. Moreover, it's important to always draw such metaphors with humility; this is just a starting point, and it should inspire rather than stop inquiry. Unfortunately, Phillips fails on these measures. He calls many diverse phenomena matters of "conversion" willy-nilly, without any apparent justificatory grounds; and he writes in an authoritative manner which doesn't welcome further inquiry.
There was only one metaphor that Phillips drew, which I found particularly fertile. Phillips re-describes the traditional Freudian term sublimation as conversion. Sublimation refers to the psychological processes by which a certain desire, for a certain outcome or end, we start off with is transformed into a new desire, for a different outcome or end -- where this transformation is made possible because some over psychological tension or lack, which is the essence of and explains the first desire, turns out to be just as, or even more, satisfied or resolved by the outcome/end of the second desire. For example, one might be lonely and desire to be immersed in conversation with others, and sublimates this desire under the activity of writing (if writing scratches the same overall itch that conversation with others does). (Most of Freud's examples are about sex: we sublimate our sexual drives under all the various socially acceptable activities that we find pleasurable).
Phillips suggests that we may regard all of our desires today as at least partially influenced by processes of sublimation. This seems right. There are always social pressures (e.g., what desires are acceptable to pursue, or that are ethically proper to have), material limitations (which desires are not futile given our material circumstances), and personal interests (what desires are most easy to pursue; which, if we held them, but paint a picture of ourselves that suits our higher order desires). (Some side-thoughts: I think a major limitation of the Freudian tradition is that its ontology of psychological types does not admit of indeterminate psychological states (even unconscious thoughts and desires are supposedly propositionally structured as conscious ones are). If we allow for indeterminate unconscious emotions, affects, or impulses towards some overall end which is indeterminate - then we can see how such social, material, and personal factors always influence what we take our own desires to be, which in effect, might be understood as an interpretation of these indeterminate unconscious affects).
This automatic socially/materially determined sort of sublimation happens all the time; perhaps it is better to simply describe it as the social/material determination of desire. It is interesting to appreciate the contrast between this, and another kind of sublimation that is driven by deliberate planning or scheming. Here Phillip's metaphor drawing works really well. Let's think about sublimation as a matter of conversion. An essential element of religious conversion (which is the paradigm or most literal case) is that a previous, important state of being is annihilated and replaced by a crucially different state. Drawing this metaphor highlights how in sublimation, the former and successor desires are crucially different; we may even describe them as wholly different, insofar as they involve entirely independent activities, which may be located in very distant domains (where distance is measured by how related they are by virtue of the materials they involve, or the roles they serve in society as a whole).
This indicates that contemplation of the processes of sublimation might help us navigate our psychological lives and transcend suffering; if there is a desire that gives a person a lot of grief, they could focus on figuring out either (1) what generalized desire might be taken as more fundamental, from which this particular desire stems; and then look for a different particular desire that could also stem out from this generalized desire, or (2) what different desires seem to scratch the same itch as this particular one, regardless of whether these different desires are more general, more specific, or lateral to the first desire.
But one can think about and understand this point within 10 pages of writing. It is quite silly, how much space Phillips takes in waxing about a lot of unsystematic and unhelpful analogies and metaphors, in an authoritative voice. I hope not too many readers take him seriously; I could imagine someone taking him seriously, getting confused by his (nonsensical) points, and wasting time trying to figure these out. I got to this book in the first place because a friend let me know that it is not quite self-help but is rather more theoretical and nevertheless is as juicy and fun to read as self-help. I don't feel this way, and if this is 'better' than most self-help out there, I don't want to read books in that literature.
March 17, 2023
Thank you, Picador and the author, for the advance reading copy.
This is my personal favourite from the new series that's coming out next year on various topics related to our mind and behaviour.
Much of the content is related to psychoanalysis and its related fields in relation to the title.
I would say the writing has long sentences and paragraphs so be mindful about these when you pick up the book.
Recommending for those who like reading about medical references in relation to human behavior and psychology.
Thank you, Picador and the author, for the advance reading copy.
This is my personal favourite from the new series that's coming out next year on various topics related to our mind and behaviour.
Much of the content is related to psychoanalysis and its related fields in relation to the title.
I would say the writing has long sentences and paragraphs so be mindful about these when you pick up the book.
Recommending for those who like reading about medical references in relation to human behavior and psychology.
Thank you, Picador and the author, for the advance reading copy.
January 5, 2023
shaking my fist, in tears
Stop telling me the truth, Mr Phillips.
Stop telling me the truth, Mr Phillips.
March 14, 2022
not as good as I expected, spends a lot of time on a religious view of conversion. It would have been better to look at the contemporary mandates to change.
July 16, 2021
I physically couldn’t put this book down, apart from to sleep, it was glued to my hand even when I was in the doc’s waiting room earlier 😆. Riveting! It’s the first time I have read this author and I expect I will read more of him.
It wasn’t exactly what I expected from the blurb. Much much better actually. I am buzzing from the stimulation of so many coherent questions and thoughts, and so many familiar (and some unfamiliar) voices brought into a conversation about something so relevant.
I was fascinated by the exploration of human change via an exploration of the idea of conversion. Perhaps we can talk about our whole human experience as one conversion after another, beginning with the power of our parents, and then identifications with those beyond our family, as we are civilised and encultured and ‘invited’ to belong, to ‘be like’ … but at what cost, and for what purpose do we maybe adapt ourselves into what we are not? What are the psychic benefits of conversion, what dangers do we protect ourselves from? Adam Phillips draws on (western, European) resources of psychoanalysis, religion, politics, and liberal artistic thinking to unpack and unpick and circle round these issues, provoking constant self reflection and placing responsibility with the reader for their own conclusions. So it was very energising. And nourishing, in these days of so many difficult changes and questions about the way the world is, and how to be in it.
(I find myself wondering what the book would look like if located in other parts of the world. Other authors, another day perhaps 🙂)
It wasn’t exactly what I expected from the blurb. Much much better actually. I am buzzing from the stimulation of so many coherent questions and thoughts, and so many familiar (and some unfamiliar) voices brought into a conversation about something so relevant.
I was fascinated by the exploration of human change via an exploration of the idea of conversion. Perhaps we can talk about our whole human experience as one conversion after another, beginning with the power of our parents, and then identifications with those beyond our family, as we are civilised and encultured and ‘invited’ to belong, to ‘be like’ … but at what cost, and for what purpose do we maybe adapt ourselves into what we are not? What are the psychic benefits of conversion, what dangers do we protect ourselves from? Adam Phillips draws on (western, European) resources of psychoanalysis, religion, politics, and liberal artistic thinking to unpack and unpick and circle round these issues, provoking constant self reflection and placing responsibility with the reader for their own conclusions. So it was very energising. And nourishing, in these days of so many difficult changes and questions about the way the world is, and how to be in it.
(I find myself wondering what the book would look like if located in other parts of the world. Other authors, another day perhaps 🙂)
September 20, 2022
Phillips’ books that originated as lectures tend not to be as gripping to me, and that’s the case here. There’s a bit too much reiteration, which makes more sense in an auditorium than on the printed page. Still, Phillips is always worth reading, and the big topic here is conversions. It’s a simple fact that we change from day to day, and truthfully from moment to moment. So what does it say about us when we make a big show of an avowed change? What does the big production cover up? What if our wish to convert is a failed attempt to freeze things in place and avoid future changes? What if we stopped worrying about how we “must be” and learned to relish surprises? Vigorously thought provoking, as always.
April 28, 2024
Bu kitabı yoğun bir değişim arzusunun pençesinde kıvrandığım dönemde almış ama okumaya dayanamamıştım; o dönem istediğim, doğru olduğunu düşündüğüm şeyleri sorgulattığı için huzursuz olmuştum. Kendi içimde değişmeye dirençli taraflarımla biraz daha derinden yüzleşip, değişim baskısından biraz kurtulduğumda tekrar okuyabilmeye başladım. Adam Phillips, tam da üstteki cümlelerde işaretlerini verdiğim şekilde, dönüşümün ve dönüşüm deneyimlerinin her yönünü ele alıp farklı kavramlarla ilişkisi hakkında düşünmeye davet ediyor. Psikanalizle ilgilenen, psikanalitik bir terapi sürecinde olan herkesin kendini farklı açılardan tanımasına yardımcı olacak bir kitap. Hayatımızda hangi kavramı nereye koyduğumuzu ve neden oraya koyduğumuzu düşünebilmemiz için kapılar açıyor. Adam Phillips, her zamanki gibi bunları yaparken çok farklı disiplinlerden bağlantılar kuruyor; bu sayede, dini, siyasi ve felsefi tartışmalar hakkında çokça şey öğrenebiliyor ve daha fazlasını da merak ediyorsunuz. Kitabın dördüncü ve son bölümüne bayıldım. Yine de okuması zor bir metin olduğu için, bir süre Adam Phillips'ten uzak kalacağımı tahmin ediyorum.
January 22, 2026
Provocações interessantes sobre como escolhemos mudar, por que, e acima de tudo, como valoramos as mudanças que nos acontecem. O autor se apoia na ideia de "conversão" como fio condutor, como uma das figuras que remetem a histórias de mudanças radicais e, buscando problematizar tal noção, a contrapõe ao processo de análise, situação na qual uma "conversão" de tipo muito específico - se pudermos manter a palavra - pode acontecer: uma mudança com um destino incerto, na companhia de alguém que, ao contrário de outros convertedores, não sabe (ou não deveria saber) o que o outro deve se tornar neste processo de mudança.
March 23, 2026
“Como imaginamos uma vida, se consideramos que ela depende de experiências de conversão ou algo do gênero?”
acho que essa é a grande questão que o autor trás. gostei bastante da leitura, especialmente por pensar no lugar da psicanálise no neoliberalismo. trás temas muito interessantes.
“E a psicanálise pode ser concebida, então, como uma conversa na qual se resiste ao desejo de converter e de ser convertido. Uma conversa na qual se pode descobrir o que pode haver entre as pessoas. quando a conversão já não é nem possível, nem desejada.” ❤️
acho que essa é a grande questão que o autor trás. gostei bastante da leitura, especialmente por pensar no lugar da psicanálise no neoliberalismo. trás temas muito interessantes.
“E a psicanálise pode ser concebida, então, como uma conversa na qual se resiste ao desejo de converter e de ser convertido. Uma conversa na qual se pode descobrir o que pode haver entre as pessoas. quando a conversão já não é nem possível, nem desejada.” ❤️
February 20, 2026
Analysis as poetry, lovely. Phillips' prose feels like free association; he is able to see the links between forms of change and our views of them. Some reviews suggest this is not sufficiently rigorous. I felt that looking into ambiguity and uncertainty was the point.
August 27, 2023
Değişimi ve dönüşümü gerçekten derinlemesine ele almış. Diğer Adam Philips kitaplarına nazaran okuması daha zor, psikanalistlere daha uygun bir kitaptı. Ama bir sayfa içerisinde anlayabildiğim 5-6 cümle bile oldukça çarpıcı tespitlere sahipti.
“Tüm yer değiştirmeler kökenlerine ihanet eder. Dönüşen kişiler travesti gibidir. Bir şeyi daha iyi sergilemek için gizlerler” gibi
Philips keşke kitabı bir kere daha biz sıradan insanlar için yazmasını isterdim :(
“Tüm yer değiştirmeler kökenlerine ihanet eder. Dönüşen kişiler travesti gibidir. Bir şeyi daha iyi sergilemek için gizlerler” gibi
Philips keşke kitabı bir kere daha biz sıradan insanlar için yazmasını isterdim :(
January 1, 2025
Çeviri yüzünden bu kadar iyi bir kitap zor okunur bir kitaba dönüşmüş
March 18, 2026
Josh recommend
out of my comfort zone for genres.
maybe something to reread? it didnt speak to me massively, but perhaps reading on transport isn't the natural setting for this.
out of my comfort zone for genres.
maybe something to reread? it didnt speak to me massively, but perhaps reading on transport isn't the natural setting for this.
November 28, 2021
I will always be up for reading a new Adam Phillips book, so I grabbed this off the shelf without a second thought, fully ready to enjoy every page. I have liked every Phillips book I have read, and have loved several of them. And while I liked parts of this one as well, I think this is the Adam Phillips book I have liked the least.
I suspect this has to do with the fact that I too consider conversion to be very important to modern life. While in his other books (Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out especially come to mind here) I tended to feel a great sense of freedom, as though Phillips had helped me discover something that I hadn't thought of before, here I found myself being a more critical (or picky) reader, ready to take exception to his sentences where before I had simply relished in their suggestiveness. I was especially critical (picky) when he discussed religious conversion and, as a possible contrast to this kind of conversion, "Socratic conversion." I felt the discussion too readily dissolved into a simple dichotomy of "religious conversion = dangerous & Socratic conversion = good," which may indeed be true, but is not the kind of thing I look forward to reading in a Phillips book.
I might return to the last essay, but in general the idea of rereading this does not excite me - which is a feeling totally at odds with my usual takeaway from his books. I don't mean to discourage people from liking this, and this slightly negative experience is definitely not going to stop me from picking up his next book. But if you're new to Phillips, I can think of five or six better books to start with than this.
I suspect this has to do with the fact that I too consider conversion to be very important to modern life. While in his other books (Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out especially come to mind here) I tended to feel a great sense of freedom, as though Phillips had helped me discover something that I hadn't thought of before, here I found myself being a more critical (or picky) reader, ready to take exception to his sentences where before I had simply relished in their suggestiveness. I was especially critical (picky) when he discussed religious conversion and, as a possible contrast to this kind of conversion, "Socratic conversion." I felt the discussion too readily dissolved into a simple dichotomy of "religious conversion = dangerous & Socratic conversion = good," which may indeed be true, but is not the kind of thing I look forward to reading in a Phillips book.
I might return to the last essay, but in general the idea of rereading this does not excite me - which is a feeling totally at odds with my usual takeaway from his books. I don't mean to discourage people from liking this, and this slightly negative experience is definitely not going to stop me from picking up his next book. But if you're new to Phillips, I can think of five or six better books to start with than this.
September 15, 2023
My least-favorite Adam Phillips production. It took a complete reading to the very last page to get anything useful out of this book. Not sure it was worth the effort.
March 9, 2026
This was a 3.5 rounded up right until the last few pages.
As other reviewers have pointed out, the title has no obvious relation to the actual content of most essays, circling as they do around various definitions of "conversion" and their implications, both positive and negative, contrasted with what he typically calls "liberal education."
Conversions -- instantaneous, wholesale transformations of the self on encountering some experience or information -- real? Good? Beneficial? Destructive? Trustworthy? If it doesn't stick, or is replaced by another conversion later, was it a true conversion? Doesn't it imply permanence? How does this mesh with other definitions such as the psychoanalytic, or the process of changing a material into something else?
It's not really about wanting to change. It's about changing whether you want to or not. The question of what kinds of change people want or pursue, by conversion or any other means, rarely makes an entry.
However, it was interesting enough and as a post-evangelical I found it thoughtful and engaging -- right up to p. 136 (out of 137 pages):
What?
What absolute hogwash. It is witnessing fathers abuse mothers that turns boys into adult male abusers, Adam, not what their own mothers did to them, though that remains a handy scapegoat that abusers like to trot out to shift the blame from their own shoulders onto whatever woman is standing nearby. You don't need to have had a mother to grow up misogynistic. It's a cultural thing.
A person of average moral intelligence could compare this to any other bigotry -- against black people, say, or disabled people, or gay/queer -- and show it is rank, victim-blaming absurdity. Do white people hate black people because they were dominated by black people in childhood? Is that why non-disabled people treat disabled people so terribly? Are we all secretly victims of gay people in childhood who they grow up to hate and dominate other gay people? No.
I might, after reading a few of his other books, knock it down another star if this is a common deficiency in his writing. At the moment I'm sticking with 3 because I'm very taken with the conclusion otherwise, which is to define conversion as the process of becoming someone else's idea of who you (and everybody else) should be with experimentation, of becoming the person only you could be.
It's an intriguing and optimistic idea, though I don't know how compatible it is with humans' need for community and belonging. And I think it might be too individualistic in a corrosive sense if everyone were to pursue it. Still, it's interesting enough that I'll try another of his books and see how it goes.
As other reviewers have pointed out, the title has no obvious relation to the actual content of most essays, circling as they do around various definitions of "conversion" and their implications, both positive and negative, contrasted with what he typically calls "liberal education."
Conversions -- instantaneous, wholesale transformations of the self on encountering some experience or information -- real? Good? Beneficial? Destructive? Trustworthy? If it doesn't stick, or is replaced by another conversion later, was it a true conversion? Doesn't it imply permanence? How does this mesh with other definitions such as the psychoanalytic, or the process of changing a material into something else?
It's not really about wanting to change. It's about changing whether you want to or not. The question of what kinds of change people want or pursue, by conversion or any other means, rarely makes an entry.
However, it was interesting enough and as a post-evangelical I found it thoughtful and engaging -- right up to p. 136 (out of 137 pages):
Why do men compulsively dominate women? Because they felt dominated by their mothers in childhood. Indeed, it would be possible, though unnecessarily crude, to see male identity -- and perhaps female identity -- as converting childhood trauma into adult triumph (misogyny is always triumphalist).
What?
What absolute hogwash. It is witnessing fathers abuse mothers that turns boys into adult male abusers, Adam, not what their own mothers did to them, though that remains a handy scapegoat that abusers like to trot out to shift the blame from their own shoulders onto whatever woman is standing nearby. You don't need to have had a mother to grow up misogynistic. It's a cultural thing.
A person of average moral intelligence could compare this to any other bigotry -- against black people, say, or disabled people, or gay/queer -- and show it is rank, victim-blaming absurdity. Do white people hate black people because they were dominated by black people in childhood? Is that why non-disabled people treat disabled people so terribly? Are we all secretly victims of gay people in childhood who they grow up to hate and dominate other gay people? No.
I might, after reading a few of his other books, knock it down another star if this is a common deficiency in his writing. At the moment I'm sticking with 3 because I'm very taken with the conclusion otherwise, which is to define conversion as the process of becoming someone else's idea of who you (and everybody else) should be with experimentation, of becoming the person only you could be.
...the radical alternative, as it were, that I want to begin with: the wish to become someone no one could possibly be like, and who is supposedly not like anyone else. ... People who want to impress without the desire to convert, in which the possibility of conversion is a missing of the point.
It's an intriguing and optimistic idea, though I don't know how compatible it is with humans' need for community and belonging. And I think it might be too individualistic in a corrosive sense if everyone were to pursue it. Still, it's interesting enough that I'll try another of his books and see how it goes.
May 24, 2024
A really interesting book. Phillips has a really wonderful prose style, a way of walking around inside concepts and patterns of speaking and thinking that opens them right up, making what seemed straightforward suddenly reveal its multidimensionality. Often this takes the form of lingering at just the place you want him to rush through to get to "the point", when really his point is to estrange us from our certainty that what we believe to be the point is really what is desired in the first place.
In one sense, almost nothing is said about what this book would suggest that it is about. The wish to be provided with prescriptions for how one might wish to approach a project of growth or self-transformation or development is systematically denied gratification, and indeed revealed in a sense to be precisely a means of avoiding the difficulties and uncertainties that come with the responsibility for directing one's own desire for change, i.e. a disavowed avoidance of growth in the form of purportedly seeking it. In another, this is the book's sustained argument, that genuine or responsible or positive transformation can only really come in the form of this kind of confusing and anxiety-laden finding oneself adrift and without reliable guidance in the complexity of one's own desiring.
Personally, I was a little frustrated by the relentlessness of Phillips' fixation on the term 'conversion', which I did not find to be charged for me in the way he seemed to presume it would be. I found myself wondering "is he going to riff on the word 'conversion' for the entire book?" at numerous points, which indeed he does. I had the sense often when reading that this term was being hammered so insistently specifically in order to avoid the associative thicket around the signifier 'trans', which appears only incidentally here and there when a stray "transformation" or some such enters the prose to break the monotony, but never with accent or emphasis, apart from one strangely homogenising remark about what all transvestites apparently want. I personally would have been very interested to see Phillips' keen sense of etymological and phonemic awareness applied to such linguistic curiosities as the root of the term "travesty" in transvestism, or the fact that the term 'bad' has its etymological roots in an archaism for a male adopting feminine manner and characteristics, which surely tell us quite a number of interesting things about his chosen themes: how we conceptualise and regulate forms of change we consider desirable or undesirable, legitimate or illegitimate, authentic or inauthentic, natural and unnatural etc. It could hardly be that these kinds of associations did not occur at all to someone like Phillips writing circa 2021, surely?
In one sense, almost nothing is said about what this book would suggest that it is about. The wish to be provided with prescriptions for how one might wish to approach a project of growth or self-transformation or development is systematically denied gratification, and indeed revealed in a sense to be precisely a means of avoiding the difficulties and uncertainties that come with the responsibility for directing one's own desire for change, i.e. a disavowed avoidance of growth in the form of purportedly seeking it. In another, this is the book's sustained argument, that genuine or responsible or positive transformation can only really come in the form of this kind of confusing and anxiety-laden finding oneself adrift and without reliable guidance in the complexity of one's own desiring.
Personally, I was a little frustrated by the relentlessness of Phillips' fixation on the term 'conversion', which I did not find to be charged for me in the way he seemed to presume it would be. I found myself wondering "is he going to riff on the word 'conversion' for the entire book?" at numerous points, which indeed he does. I had the sense often when reading that this term was being hammered so insistently specifically in order to avoid the associative thicket around the signifier 'trans', which appears only incidentally here and there when a stray "transformation" or some such enters the prose to break the monotony, but never with accent or emphasis, apart from one strangely homogenising remark about what all transvestites apparently want. I personally would have been very interested to see Phillips' keen sense of etymological and phonemic awareness applied to such linguistic curiosities as the root of the term "travesty" in transvestism, or the fact that the term 'bad' has its etymological roots in an archaism for a male adopting feminine manner and characteristics, which surely tell us quite a number of interesting things about his chosen themes: how we conceptualise and regulate forms of change we consider desirable or undesirable, legitimate or illegitimate, authentic or inauthentic, natural and unnatural etc. It could hardly be that these kinds of associations did not occur at all to someone like Phillips writing circa 2021, surely?
January 15, 2025
“Yeryüzünde yaşamak değişmektir, mükemmel olmak ise sık sık değişmiş olmaktır.”
— John Henry Newman
“Yerinden edilmemiş şeylerin, yer değiştirmeyi deneyimlememiş benliklerin katılığı, gerçekten de yanılsamaların en büyüğü olabilir.”
— Richard Sennett, *The Foreigner*
Kitabın genel teması, kimlik arayışı bağlamında değişim ve yerinden edilmenin etkileri olarak özetlenebilir. Adam Phillips, bu eserinde değişimin ve hareketin bireysel ve toplumsal açıdan ne kadar temel bir unsur olduğunu ele alıyor. John Henry Newman ve Richard Sennett gibi önemli isimlerin değişim üzerine felsefi bakış açılarını yansıtan güçlü alıntılarla başlayan bölümler, okuyucuyu derin bir sorgulama sürecine davet ediyor.
Bu alıntılardan hareketle, Phillips; Freud, Sokrates ve Augustinus gibi pek çok düşünce devlerinin değişim ve dönüşüm konusundaki felsefelerini detaylı bir şekilde irdelemiş. Kitap, mükemmelliğin sürekli bir dönüşüm içinde bulunmayı gerektirdiğini ve hareketin ya da yerinden edilme deneyiminin eksikliğinin benlikleri yanılsamalara hapsettiğini anlatiyor.
Sonuç olarak, Phillips’in eserinde hem bireysel hem toplumsal düzeyde değişimin kaçınılmazlığı ve gerekliliği, felsefi ve psikolojik bir sentezle derinlemesine ele alınmış. Kanımca, bu konunun daha sade bir dille işlenmesi, eserin daha geniş bir okuyucu kitlesine hitap etmesini sağlayabilirdi; zira değişim ve dönüşüm, herkesin hayatında sıkça karşılaştığı bir mesele.
— John Henry Newman
“Yerinden edilmemiş şeylerin, yer değiştirmeyi deneyimlememiş benliklerin katılığı, gerçekten de yanılsamaların en büyüğü olabilir.”
— Richard Sennett, *The Foreigner*
Kitabın genel teması, kimlik arayışı bağlamında değişim ve yerinden edilmenin etkileri olarak özetlenebilir. Adam Phillips, bu eserinde değişimin ve hareketin bireysel ve toplumsal açıdan ne kadar temel bir unsur olduğunu ele alıyor. John Henry Newman ve Richard Sennett gibi önemli isimlerin değişim üzerine felsefi bakış açılarını yansıtan güçlü alıntılarla başlayan bölümler, okuyucuyu derin bir sorgulama sürecine davet ediyor.
Bu alıntılardan hareketle, Phillips; Freud, Sokrates ve Augustinus gibi pek çok düşünce devlerinin değişim ve dönüşüm konusundaki felsefelerini detaylı bir şekilde irdelemiş. Kitap, mükemmelliğin sürekli bir dönüşüm içinde bulunmayı gerektirdiğini ve hareketin ya da yerinden edilme deneyiminin eksikliğinin benlikleri yanılsamalara hapsettiğini anlatiyor.
Sonuç olarak, Phillips’in eserinde hem bireysel hem toplumsal düzeyde değişimin kaçınılmazlığı ve gerekliliği, felsefi ve psikolojik bir sentezle derinlemesine ele alınmış. Kanımca, bu konunun daha sade bir dille işlenmesi, eserin daha geniş bir okuyucu kitlesine hitap etmesini sağlayabilirdi; zira değişim ve dönüşüm, herkesin hayatında sıkça karşılaştığı bir mesele.
November 27, 2022
For fans (admirers) of Phillips, this is more of what you love. Although this is perhaps my least favourite of his works it's still a five star read. If I ranked his books the list would likely change each time.
For those who don't read Phillips, this might not be one to start with, but then again it might not matter which you start with. So why not give it a shot?
He has a unique style and voice, a healthy appreciation for life and literature, how the two meet, how they change each other or in response to each other or, of course, a combination of the two.
So, what does it mean to change, anyway? What does it mean when we find ourselves wanting to change, or when we find others want us to change? What is a conversion? How do we understand these concepts? How do we understand them in relation to our lives, both lived and unlived? The ideas here are both familiar and, often, unexplored. We don't always consider how this all works as we play it out on a daily basis.
The ending of this work is a page or two of immense power. If you thought the topic, the concepts, and our understanding of them would be neatly tied together and everything would make sense, I have some bad news for you about this work and about life.
This, much like Phillips's other works, is a thought-provoking book that invites you go exploring with it. So, put your Thinking Caps on and go for the ride.
For those who don't read Phillips, this might not be one to start with, but then again it might not matter which you start with. So why not give it a shot?
He has a unique style and voice, a healthy appreciation for life and literature, how the two meet, how they change each other or in response to each other or, of course, a combination of the two.
So, what does it mean to change, anyway? What does it mean when we find ourselves wanting to change, or when we find others want us to change? What is a conversion? How do we understand these concepts? How do we understand them in relation to our lives, both lived and unlived? The ideas here are both familiar and, often, unexplored. We don't always consider how this all works as we play it out on a daily basis.
The ending of this work is a page or two of immense power. If you thought the topic, the concepts, and our understanding of them would be neatly tied together and everything would make sense, I have some bad news for you about this work and about life.
This, much like Phillips's other works, is a thought-provoking book that invites you go exploring with it. So, put your Thinking Caps on and go for the ride.
July 30, 2025
Picked this up as part of some school-affiliated reading, as I am working on a paper that will explore my concept of human change (seems appropriate enough). This is my second foray into Phillips, who continues to be a bit more heady and less readable than I would like. (This seems to be a recurring theme among Freudian-leaning writers... I seem to find myself continually more moved by Jungian types.).
These are originally lectures? So it has a bit of a stilted nature that feels impenetrable. He's clearly a clever fellow but it all comes off a bit stuffy and intellectual... abstractions leading into more abstractions. I did adjust to his turning to a greater exploration of "Conversion" as opposed to the assumed title of "Change" (this felt like clever marketing, though I felt quite the same about his other book, mind).
As someone with a religious background that shifts and moves with complications, certainly approaching the notion of change from that original meaning is insightful.
But, and perhaps I'm just a fool, I often got through a handful of pages not too sure what I had just read.
I'm probably off his stuff for a while now, unless someone particularly recommends another of his books (or he releases another one with an equally compelling title, oh my.)
These are originally lectures? So it has a bit of a stilted nature that feels impenetrable. He's clearly a clever fellow but it all comes off a bit stuffy and intellectual... abstractions leading into more abstractions. I did adjust to his turning to a greater exploration of "Conversion" as opposed to the assumed title of "Change" (this felt like clever marketing, though I felt quite the same about his other book, mind).
As someone with a religious background that shifts and moves with complications, certainly approaching the notion of change from that original meaning is insightful.
But, and perhaps I'm just a fool, I often got through a handful of pages not too sure what I had just read.
I'm probably off his stuff for a while now, unless someone particularly recommends another of his books (or he releases another one with an equally compelling title, oh my.)
September 12, 2021
I loved any moments of direct talk about psychoanalytic theory, less the references to religion and literature. But man did it get me thinking. I’m in the midst of a social work placement and doing a lot of thinking about the Social work identity. So much of this is about the desire for change, and this idea of conversion made me think about how important it is that it is the system we seek to change not the person. I loved the discussions of experimentation as the antidote to conversion, the exploration and not knowing of psychoanalysis that I have come to appreciate so deeply in my own life. A learning of oneself that has nothing to do with becoming more like any one thing, but a reorientation, a turning towards whatever we might find if we are brave enough to look inside ourselves.
“people are prone to conversion experiences when they can no longer bear the complexity of their own minds.“
“Imitation maybe suicide, as Emerson wrote, but there forms of identification that can be life enhancing, but give us more, not less, of the life that is ours”
“people are prone to conversion experiences when they can no longer bear the complexity of their own minds.“
“Imitation maybe suicide, as Emerson wrote, but there forms of identification that can be life enhancing, but give us more, not less, of the life that is ours”
December 29, 2025
Este ensaio reflete sobre o desejo de mudar e o que isso realmente significa. O autor questiona se a transformação pessoal é um ato de liberdade ou uma forma subtil de coerção. Analisa a ideia de conversão (religiosa, política, terapêutica ou pessoal) e como as narrativas de progresso contrastam com a ambivalência psicológica real. Com referências a Freud, William James e Santo Agostinho, combina psicanálise, literatura e filosofia para explorar se a melhoria contínua é uma ilusão ou uma possibilidade concreta.
Pontos positivos:
Levanta questões interessantes sobre mudança e autenticidade.
Oferece uma visão crítica sobre a obsessão contemporânea por “melhorar”.
Pontos negativos:
Texto muito teórico e denso, com pouca aplicação prática.
Pode parecer repetitivo e difícil de acompanhar.
Conclusão:
Uma obra profunda, mas excessivamente abstrata para leitores que esperam conselhos práticos ou uma leitura leve.
Pontos positivos:
Levanta questões interessantes sobre mudança e autenticidade.
Oferece uma visão crítica sobre a obsessão contemporânea por “melhorar”.
Pontos negativos:
Texto muito teórico e denso, com pouca aplicação prática.
Pode parecer repetitivo e difícil de acompanhar.
Conclusão:
Uma obra profunda, mas excessivamente abstrata para leitores que esperam conselhos práticos ou uma leitura leve.
August 28, 2025
kitabı, psikanaliz üzerine ortak okumalar yapmak istediğimiz bir arkadaşımla birlikte 3 haftada üzerine konuşarak (bölümlere bölerek) bitirdik. iyi ki de öyle oldu yoksa şimdiye kadar kitabı yarım bırakmıştım :) özellikle bu kitabı böyle okumak benim için çok daha besleyici ve bir nebze olsun daha anlaşılır oldu.
kitap; değişim ve dönüşüm perspektifinden, dönüşüm terapisi, din, siyaset, psikanaliz gibi alanlara değiniyor ve toplam 4 bölümden oluşuyor. özellikle her bölümde bir çok soruyla karşılamak, o sorular üzerine düşünmek, cevap bulmak, bazen bulamamak bile oldukça keyifliydi.
özellikle en çok son bölümü sevdim. her ne kadar okuması zor olsada bana farklı bir bakış açısı sağladı bir noktada. neyse ki arkadaşımla birlikte okumak ve üzerine konuşmak biraz olsun kolaylaştırdı :)
“dönüşüm yaşayarak uzaklaşmak istediğimiz şey nedir?”
kitap; değişim ve dönüşüm perspektifinden, dönüşüm terapisi, din, siyaset, psikanaliz gibi alanlara değiniyor ve toplam 4 bölümden oluşuyor. özellikle her bölümde bir çok soruyla karşılamak, o sorular üzerine düşünmek, cevap bulmak, bazen bulamamak bile oldukça keyifliydi.
özellikle en çok son bölümü sevdim. her ne kadar okuması zor olsada bana farklı bir bakış açısı sağladı bir noktada. neyse ki arkadaşımla birlikte okumak ve üzerine konuşmak biraz olsun kolaylaştırdı :)
“dönüşüm yaşayarak uzaklaşmak istediğimiz şey nedir?”
January 12, 2024
As a newcomer to the field of self-questioning, understanding who you are and doing psychological readings (about 5-6 months), it was one of the first few books I read. To be honest, the fact that it had quite long and complex sentence structures for me reduced the comprehension percentage of the book considerably.
However, even though towards the end of the book I found ideologies that I identified with my own way of thinking about change and transformation, I was quite satisfied.
Honestly, I cannot recommend it to readers who are new to these processes, because it was quite difficult to understand and made it difficult to read. However, with patience, I think you can find more meaning towards the end of the book.
However, even though towards the end of the book I found ideologies that I identified with my own way of thinking about change and transformation, I was quite satisfied.
Honestly, I cannot recommend it to readers who are new to these processes, because it was quite difficult to understand and made it difficult to read. However, with patience, I think you can find more meaning towards the end of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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July 2, 2025What I admire most about Phillips (it’s difficult to single out just one thing) is his ability to present a phrase you take for granted and turn that phrase into a worldview by walking, slowly, all the way around it.
This book should really be titled “On Conversion.” I’ve never thought much about the word before. But Phillips has made a compelling case, a portrait of life in which we are always undergoing “conversion experiences” — Phillips would say that a new phrase has entered my vocabulary and “expanded the amount of available reality.”
Phillips says that when we undergo a conversion, we hear a language that makes competing or alternative languages seem unrealistic, or not really languages at all. This strikes me as a pretty useful definition of good writing.
This book should really be titled “On Conversion.” I’ve never thought much about the word before. But Phillips has made a compelling case, a portrait of life in which we are always undergoing “conversion experiences” — Phillips would say that a new phrase has entered my vocabulary and “expanded the amount of available reality.”
Phillips says that when we undergo a conversion, we hear a language that makes competing or alternative languages seem unrealistic, or not really languages at all. This strikes me as a pretty useful definition of good writing.
March 31, 2022
A quite philosophical amplification (or redescription, to use one of Phillips' favorite characterizations) of the term "conversion" that takes the reader from early Freud through Paul and Augustine to Bollas and Wendy Brown. I'll have to reread it to really absorb it, but it will be a pleasure to do so, as it is full of insights, such as this one: "It is possible to see Winnicott's work, then, as an attempt ... to think through the need to be believed; to find out what else, if anything, people could do together other than try to convert each other (the technical psychoanalytic term for conversion was 'identification'; the political term was 'imperialism')."
November 9, 2024
Zamani degilmis galiba. Kitabin dilini anlayamadim ve icine giremedim. Sadece “ister inan ister inanma” bolumunun 4. kismi ilgimi cekti ve anladim :) . Bu bolumde bebeklerin anneleriyle yasadigi travmalarinin nasil sapkin yetiskin biri olabileceklerine olan baglantisini acikliyor. O bebegin nasil bir canavara “donustugunu” acikliyor.
Genel olarak bir research okusam daha cok anlardim herhalde ama onyargili olmak istemiyorum. Biraz zaman verip (1-2 yil kadar) sonra tekrar okumak isterim. Belki de Phillips’in tamamlayici olarak yazdigi bir sonraki kitabi “iyilesmek uzerine”ye bir sans veririm ilk once.
Genel olarak bir research okusam daha cok anlardim herhalde ama onyargili olmak istemiyorum. Biraz zaman verip (1-2 yil kadar) sonra tekrar okumak isterim. Belki de Phillips’in tamamlayici olarak yazdigi bir sonraki kitabi “iyilesmek uzerine”ye bir sans veririm ilk once.
December 9, 2025
I was in doubt between a 2 and 3. opted for 3 stars since I'm a fan of his other books.
the title of the book is misleading. it should be called on conversion. since that's the topic he discusses. there is however a difference between changing and converging.
he doesn't address changing, a more subtle form of transformation than conversation at all.
this makes the book somewhat frustrating to read. since you're constantly asking yourself, so how about less radical forms of transformation. but the author sticks to the conversion discourse.
still a pretty interesting read.
the title of the book is misleading. it should be called on conversion. since that's the topic he discusses. there is however a difference between changing and converging.
he doesn't address changing, a more subtle form of transformation than conversation at all.
this makes the book somewhat frustrating to read. since you're constantly asking yourself, so how about less radical forms of transformation. but the author sticks to the conversion discourse.
still a pretty interesting read.
November 7, 2021
Same feelings I always get when finishing a Phillips book;
That was brilliant!
What's it about?
Erm...change, and ...wanting to change.
Can you elaborate?
Yes...No. I can't seem to exactly remember, or formulate my thoughts....How strange...
Ok, why is it brilliant?
Well....It was lovely to read. It was exciting. It was enjoyable.
But you don't know what it was about?
I feel like I sort-of know what it was about. Oh blimey, I'll read it again!
That was brilliant!
What's it about?
Erm...change, and ...wanting to change.
Can you elaborate?
Yes...No. I can't seem to exactly remember, or formulate my thoughts....How strange...
Ok, why is it brilliant?
Well....It was lovely to read. It was exciting. It was enjoyable.
But you don't know what it was about?
I feel like I sort-of know what it was about. Oh blimey, I'll read it again!
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