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Can people truly change? When one is unhappy or unwell, is it possible to get better? Adam Phillips, the UK’s foremost literary psychoanalyst, thinks that these may not be the right questions to ask. Rather, we should consider what we mean by the terms ‘change’ and ‘get better’, and how transformation and self-betterment have been mythologized. In bestselling works On Wanting to Change and On Getting Better, Phillips encourages us to rethink the ways we talk about mental health and the lives we lead. By redefining the terms of the conversation surrounding change, we may learn to think more clearly about ourselves. At the Library, Phillips will discuss the human mind and the tools we have to understand it. 

About the speaker:

Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practicing psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of various works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently The Cure For Psychoanalysis, On Getting Better, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, and In Writing. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature, and a contributor to the London Review of Books.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Phillips will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

This event requires advance registration.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.