The Electrified Tightrope

by Adam Phillips, Michael Elgen

A collection of exceptional papers by Michael Eigen, selected and assembled by Adam Phillips, that represent 20 years of writing and 30 years of work. The papers examine the tension, caused by the conflict between poise and catastrophe, in the therapeutic relationship. This volume contains a thought-provoking introduction from Adam Phillips and includes introductory notes for the chapters and a detailed Afterword by Michael Eigen.

Genres: Psychology

Hardcover

First published April 1, 1995

About the author

Adam 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."

Reviews

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this book 5* because parts of it are brilliant and expressed with laser like clarity... warning: other parts are a little verbose, overly academic and abstract. If you can get through it, it's worth it. I appreciate how precise Eigen is with his language and the book is packed full of insights. My only critique of this is the same one that I have of a lot of psychoanalytic writing: it occasionally becomes wordy, and draws enough from symbolic life that it kind of veers into projective academic poetry at times. If we're being honest though, I also enjoy projective academic poetry ;) What I loved about this book was that it offered tons of opportunities to experience empathy and to philosophically explore human intentions and behaviors as they relate to power and trauma in a clinical environment. He also made so many wonderful and unique points. Overall: I found it to be optimistic, riveting and raw. And I've never read anything quite like it.