On Giving Up

On Giving Up by Adam Phillips (2024) is a collection of essays by the British psychoanalyst exploring what it really means to “give up.” Rather than treating it only as failure or weakness, Phillips suggests that giving up can also be a form of honesty, freedom, or renewal. Drawing on Freud, literature, and everyday experience, he examines the tensions between persistence and surrender, success and resignation, and the lives we imagine versus the ones we live. It’s not a self-help book, but a reflective, poetic meditation that invites readers to rethink how letting go shapes who we are.