“What a person seeks when seeking to change” and other questions raised by Adam Phillips about psychoanalysis and transformations

Abstract

When someone seeks psychoanalytic treatment, a desire for change is often among their motivations—changing something about themselves, their life, the source of their suffering, or their aspirations for the future. What does a person want when they want to change? And do our conceptions of change themselves change? Among the transformations a psychoanalytic process can foster, are there shifts in how one thinks about change?
Sobre querer mudar is the title of a book comprising a collection of essays by British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, published in Brazil by Ubu Editora in 2025 and translated by Ana Carolina Mesquita. The original work, On Wanting to Change, was published in 2022 by Penguin Books as a series of essays; these were followed by another book published that same year, On Getting Better—a title that translates to "Sobre melhorar" but for which no Brazilian edition yet exists. Both collections consist of essays that stand independently yet share a common thread: reflections on the meanings surrounding change and improvement. [...]