In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch: Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices brings together psychoanalyst and photographer Mark Gerald‘s insightful, personal writings and artfully composed photographs to form a complex portrait of psychoanalysis today. It is the culmination of Gerald’s fifteen-year project of photographing psychoanalysts in their offices across 27 cities and 10 countries.
In his artist statement, Gerald writes about his intersecting life as a psychoanalyst and photographer: “I have always been interested in seeing people in their surface appearance, and in the deeper sense of who they are. Both psychoanalysts and photographers try to attain a vision of their subjects that is rich in the complexity and interaction between what is shown and what is concealed. Attending to how people present themselves in their facial expressions, body language, attire, and what they chose to surround themselves with can result in a clearer picture of the multifaceted nature of the self.”
Part memoir, part history, part case study, and part self-analysis, In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch showcases a diversity of analysts: male and female and classical and contemporary. The book explores how the growing variety 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 over fifty environmental portraits of psychoanalysts in their offices, 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.
IN THE SHADOW OF FREUD’S COUCH:
Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices
PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT BY MARK GERALD
(Routledge, September 2019)
Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-0367206000
7.5 x 9.8 inches, 224 pages
Price: $24.95 US
