A startlingly original psychoanalytic writer takes on death, loss, and the telling of life stories through an exploration of Darwin and Freud.. Adam Phillips has been called the psychotherapist of the floating world and the closest thing we have to a philosopher of happiness. His style is epigrammatic; his intelligence, electric.His new book, Darwins Worms , uses the biographical details of Darwins and Freuds lives to examine endingssuffering, mortality, extinction, and death. Both Freud and Darwin were interested in how destruction conserves life. They took their inspiration from fossils or from half-remembered dreams. Each told a story that has altered our perception of our lives. For Darwin, Phillips explains, the story to tell was how species can drift towards extinction; for Freud, the story was how the individual tended to, and tended towards his own death. In each case, it is a death-story that uniquely illuminates the life story.
- ISBN10 046505675X
- ISBN13 9780465056750
- Publish Date 17 February 2000 (first published 1 November 1999)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 25 May 2000
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Basic Books
- Edition New edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 160
- Language English