Born in Cardiff in 1954, Adam Phillips is one of the greatest contemporary British psychoanalysts. After taking an Arts degree at Oxford, he carried out post-graduate research in poetry at the University of York. Donald Winnicott’s Playing and Reality had such a profound impact on him that he decided to train as a psychotherapist for children. Aged only 35, he was appointed head of the Children’s Psychotherapy Unit at Charing Cross Hospital. Today, he is a psychoanalyst for adults, having worked for the NHS for the past 17 years. He is a visiting professor at the University of York (Department of Literature) and the author of fourteen books, namely, Houdini’s Box: On the Arts of Escape (2001), Going Sane (2005). He is also responsible for the new translation of the work of Freud for Penguin. His biography of Winnicott (1988) has become a classic.