On the Couch : A Repressed History of the Analytic Couch from Plato to Freud by Nathan Kravis (2017, Hardcover)
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherMIT Press
ISBN-100262036614
ISBN-139780262036610
eBay Product ID (ePID)239655914
Product Key Features
Book TitleOn the Couch : a Repressed History of the Analytic Couch from Plato to Freud
Number of Pages224 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2017
TopicHistory & Criticism, Movements / Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy / General, Interior Design / General, Physician & Patient, History
IllustratorYes
GenreDesign, Architecture, Psychology, Medical
AuthorNathan Kravis
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height0.9 in
Item Weight28.4 Oz
Item Length9.3 in
Item Width7.2 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2016-052900
Dewey Edition23
Dewey Decimal616.8917
SynopsisHow the couch became an icon of self-knowledge and self-reflection as well as a site for pleasure, transgression, and healing. The peculiar arrangement of the psychoanalyst's office for an analytic session seems inexplicable. The analyst sits in a chair out of sight while the patient lies on a couch facing away. It has been this way since Freud, although, as Nathan Kravis points out in On the Couch , this practice is grounded more in the cultural history of reclining posture than in empirical research. Kravis, himself a practicing psychoanalyst, shows that the tradition of recumbent speech wasn't dreamed up by Freud but can be traced back to ancient Greece, where guests reclined on couches at the symposion (a gathering for upper-class males to discuss philosophy and drink wine), and to the Roman convivium (a banquet at which men and women reclined together). From bed to bench to settee to chaise-longue to sofa: Kravis tells how the couch became an icon of self-knowledge and self-reflection as well as a site for pleasure, privacy, transgression, and healing. Kravis draws on sources that range from ancient funerary monuments to furniture history to early photography, as well as histories of medicine, fashion, and interior decoration, and he deploys an astonishing array of images--of paintings, monuments, sculpture, photographs, illustrations, New Yorker cartoons, and advertisements. Kravis deftly shows that, despite the ambivalence of today's psychoanalysts--some of whom regard it as "infantilizing"--the couch continues to be the emblem of a narrative of self-discovery. Recumbent speech represents the affirmation in the presence of another of having a mind of one's own., How the couch became an icon of self-knowledge and self-reflection as well as a site for pleasure, transgression, and healing. The peculiar arrangement of the psychoanalyst's office for an analytic session seems inexplicable. The analyst sits in a chair out of sight while the patient lies on a couch facing away. It has been this way since Freud, although, as Nathan Kravis points out in On the Couch , this practice is grounded more in the cultural history of reclining posture than in empirical research. Kravis, himself a practicing psychoanalyst, shows that the tradition of recumbent speech wasn't dreamed up by Freud but can be traced back to ancient Greece, where guests reclined on couches at the symposion (a gathering for upper-class males to discuss philosophy and drink wine), and to the Roman convivium (a banquet at which men and women reclined together). From bed to bench to settee to chaise-longue to sofa- Kravis tells how the couch became an icon of self-knowledge and self-reflection as well as a site for pleasure, privacy, transgression, and healing. Kravis draws on sources that range from ancient funerary monuments to furniture history to early photography, as well as histories of medicine, fashion, and interior decoration, and he deploys an astonishing array of images-of paintings, monuments, sculpture, photographs, illustrations, New Yorker cartoons, and advertisements. Kravis deftly shows that, despite the ambivalence of today's psychoanalysts-some of whom regard it as "infantilizing"-the couch continues to be the emblem of a narrative of self-discovery. Recumbent speech represents the affirmation in the presence of another of having a mind of one's own.
LC Classification NumberRC506
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