On the Couch: A Repressed History of the Analytic Couch from Plato to Freud

Nathan Kravis

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Language: English

Published by The MIT Press, 2017

0262036614 / 9780262036610

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Seller: The Anthropologists Closet, West Des Moines, IA, U.S.A.The Anthropologists Closet

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New tightly bound hardcover in a new dust jacket. 8vo. (7.06 x 0.94 x 9.19 inches) Clean text free of marks or underlining. B&W photos and illustrations. Includes notes, bibliography and an index. 224 pp Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. 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. .…

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Title
On the Couch: A Repressed History of the Analytic Couch from Plato to Freud
Author
Nathan Kravis
Publisher
The MIT Press
Publication year
2017
Condition
New
Dust jacket
Dust Jacket Included
Binding
Hardcover
Language
English
ISBN 10
0262036614
ISBN 13
9780262036610

The Anthropologists Closet

West Des Moines, IA, U.S.A.

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The Anthropologists Closet is a small mother-daughter-owned online bookstore. We offer a wide range of academic non-fiction books, a large collection of art catalogs, signed books, and an extensive history and military collection. We uphold high ethical standards and are dedicated to ensuring that our listings are accurate and that our customers are satisfied. Our books are packaged with care in a secure book box mailer with tracking. We offer full refunds and free return shipping. Satisfaction guaranteed!…

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The Anthropologists Closet

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