The Life You Want

By: Adam Phillips

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026-03-31

Adam Phillips, the foremost psychoanalytic writer of our time, plays with ideas about the lives we want.

Where do we get ideas about the lives we want? And, what do we do—and fail to do—about actually getting them?

In The Life You Want, Adam Phillips uses psychoanalytic and literary approaches to show that we are obsessed by the idea of our lives being ones we want and enjoy rather than merely endure, tolerate, or make the most of.

Through a series of interlinked essays, Phillips explores the difficulties we have around the whole idea of enjoying—and fashioning—our lives in cultures that insistently promote enjoyment while making it very difficult for so many people. Exploring the personal and political overlap in the issue of our lives, The Life You Want is a profound examination of our ambivalence about enjoyment, and indeed, wanting.