gone, gone, really gone, real far gone, YIPPIE!!!!!!

	You don't have to be a Freudian to enjoy Freud's couch.  It's a thing of beauty in and of itself.  Stretch out.  Close your eyes.  Free associate.  I don't want to make you paranoid or anything, but remember - you are on the internet - men in white coats are watching your every move and reading your every word. This article, "Analysing Freud's Couch" by Peter Cook appeared in The Guardian, Monday 21 August 2006 "Why did Sigmund Freud make his patients lie on couches? Why didn't he tell them to sit up straight, or psychoanalyse them standing up? The solution to this mystery has been found and is on display in a fascinating exhibition in Freud's old apartment in Vienna, part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of his birth. In Freud's day, reclining in mixed company was an extremely risque business. "If a visitor is announced, you are to receive him in a standing position -never lying on the chaise longue," warned Konstanze von Franken in her Handbook of Good Form & Fine Manners, published in Berlin in 1922.  Even sitting upright on a couch, rather than a straight-backed chair, was seen as far too forward. "A gentleman never takes a seat on the sofa," declared Herr Schramm in his book of etiquette, Good Form & Proper Deportment (Berlin, 1919). In light of such stern advice, Freud's invitation to his patients to lounge about seems remarkably daring - rather like a modern analyst inviting his patients to strip off and clamber into bed. So why did Freud risk opprobrium by asking those who visited him to adopt such a provocative position? The answer lies in the extraordinary things that happen when people do their thinking (and talking) lying down. As an enthusiastic practitioner of hypnosis, Freud had seen how lying down liberated people from conventional trains of thought. Although he abandoned hypnotism soon after he moved into his apartment in Vienna's Berggasse, he retained a hypnotist's couch to assist him in his new technique of free association. Freud found that lying down promotes a loss of control that encourages more instinctive conversation. And no wonder -the word couch (from the French coucher) doesn't only mean to lie down; it also means to put an idea into words. The safer English word, sofa (from Arabic suffa) has none of the same connotations, so it's ironic that Freud's couch - a gift from a Viennese patient - ended up in prim Hampstead, where Freud spent his final years, after fleeing to England to escape the Nazis. Today his couch has pride of place at 20 Maresfield Gardens, the house (now a museum) where he died in 1939."
	November 8, 2009 at 10:55 PM
Ms. X	Hmm, fery interestink.  I can see why people would really open up while lying in such a relaxing and calming atmosphere. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time sleeping, the instinctive conversation within my head just keeps bouncing around, looking for answers.
	November 12, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Leo	My doctor has a couch.  Nothing like the one in the picture.  But I could never lie down on the couch in a shrink's office no matter how beautiful it was. I'm too inhibited.  I sit in my chair, which is a lounge chair, but I never engage the lounge feature.  The slim lined, black leather Ikea type. I sit straight up, or slouch forward with my arms resting on my knees. That's my usual conversational posture.  Edge of seat.   Always on guard. Ready to make a quick exit.
Leo	November 13, 2009 at 4:47 PM Hmmm.  Just noticed the last time I visited my Doc that there is no longer a couch there and now I'm wondering if it was ever there at all or if I just imagined it?
Leo	December 29, 2013 at 2:23 PM Update:  I no longer see my Doc.  The co-pay became too much of a burden.  I do believe psychoanalysis helped me - to some extent - I certainly left far less delusional than when I entered and with a much more attractive hairstyle.  Looking back, I have to wonder what the hell was I  thinking.  I must never wear my hair that way again!