On the face of it, Phillips's claim is that we are getting better all the time, or at least that we may do so. For him, “to talk about getting better . . . is to talk about pursuing the life we want.” His book, always suggestive and often brilliant, entails an argument in moral philosophy, roughly in favor of Millean experiments in living. A number of difficulties, however, arise. The first and perhaps the foremost is that the moral philosophy is covered by several layers of sheep's clothing. The first three chapters of the book (“Cure,” “Unsatisfying Pleasures,” “Truth”) put forth a version of psychotherapy that substitutes a cheerful William James for Freud and, ultimately, for every conceivable psychoanalyst. James is also the explicit topic of the fifth and final chapter (“Loose Change”). Phillips argues that James's description of conversion turns out to be a theory of change and...
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