What Difference Has Theory Made? From Freud to Adam Phillips

Theories are the ways we see things, and there seem to be three possible kinds of theories: transparent, opaque, and translucent. Transparent theories assume there is no theory at all or that we need none; opaque theories are those that are so dense or intricate that we cannot see through them to anything beyond; translucent theories (such as Freud's and Phillips's) keep us critically aware of where we are in relation to the things we want to see. In his several recent books, Phillips has developed in a very imaginative and compelling way, a tradition of thinking about children and their theories of difference that reaches back to Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and D.W. Winnicott. Phillips's ideas provide a fruitful medium between ideas about childhood and about children's literature and culture.