Can Psychoanalysis Help You Get the Life You Want?

"Both are "idealists," he writes, "deranged by hope, in awe of reassurance, impressed by their pleasures." The book criticizes monogamy as "a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to a minimum," but it doesn't exactly defend infidelity. Phillips's real target may be monotony, the offspring of rote rule-following."

""Perhaps we value monogamy because it lets us have it both ways," he writes-novelty and continuity, enchantment and disillusion, the lives we live and those we merely visit in our dreams."

"When we were children, he continues, our parents recognized some parts of us and not others (athleticism but not musicality, for instance, or cheerfulness but not guile); now we go around both upholding and rebelling against those received regimes."

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips challenges conventional views on monogamy and personal identity through aphorisms and philosophical inquiry. He contends that both the faithful and unfaithful are idealists driven by hope and reassurance. Rather than defending infidelity, Phillips critiques the unexamined acceptance of monogamy as societal norm, arguing monotony poses the greater threat. He suggests committed relationships can provide the same novelty, drama, and disillusionment typically sought through affairs. Phillips further explores how childhood experiences shape adult identity, with parents recognizing certain traits while suppressing others. Adults navigate this by alternately displaying and concealing encouraged and discouraged aspects of themselves, creating internal conflict between authentic desires and internalized expectations.

Read at The New Yorker