Overview

In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch: Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices uses text and images to form a complex portrait of psychoanalysis today. It is the culmination of the authors 15-year project of photographing psychoanalysts in their offices across 27 cities and ten countries. Part memoir, part history, part case study, and part self-analysis, these pages showcase a diversity of analysts: male and female and old-school and contemporary. Starting with Freud’s iconic office, the book explores how the growing diversity in both analysts and patient groups, and changes in schools of thought have been reflected in these intimate spaces, and how the choices analysts make in their office arrangements can have real effects on treatment. Along with the presentation of images, Mark Gerald explores the powerful relational foundations of theory and clinical technique, the mutually vulnerable patient-analyst connection, and the history of the psychoanalytic office. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as psychotherapists, counsellors, and social workers interested in understanding and innovating the spaces used for mental health treatment. It will also appeal to interior designers, office architects, photographers, and anyone who ever considered entering a psychoanalyst's office.

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9780367206000

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Reviews

`In this unique and remarkable book, Mark Gerald has given us a precious gift. Combining his extraordinary skills as photographer and psychoanalyst, he has produced not only a volume of rare beauty, but the most creative work to appear in our field in many years. This is a book to be treasured by therapists and artists alike.'-Ted Jacobs, MD, Psychoanalyst `With a keen photographer's eye, attunement to space, a deep understanding of psychoanalytic theory and poetic storytelling this book studies the complex meaning of the therapy office as a place, an idea and a challenge. This book will offer insight to therapy professionals as well as design professionals interested in the relationship of space and feelings.'-Esther Sperber, AIA, Architect `These are compelling, impactful portraits of an international group of psychoanalysts that show the office environment as an important element of the therapeutic experience. Anyone interested in photography and therapy will be drawn to this collection of masterly images and essays by a well-known psychoanalyst.'-Harvey Stein, Photographer, Educator, Curator

Author Information

Mark Gerald is a practicing psychoanalyst and trained photographer based in the USA who has written, presented, and taught widely about the visual dimension of psychoanalysis. He is a faculty member of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy.

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