On the Couch: A Repressed History of the Analytic Couch from Plato to Freud (The MIT Press)

Synopsis

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. Why Is The Couch Used In Psychoanalysis? -- Symposion And Convivium -- The Evolution Of The Couch And The Rise Of The Sofa -- Comfort, Recumbence, Interiority, And Transgression -- The Medicalization Of Comfort -- Recumbent Posture In 19th-century Psychiatry And Therapeutics -- Freud's Couch -- The Analyst's Moral Interior -- Whence? Whither? Whether? Nathan Kravis. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.