{"product_id":"on-the-couch-a-repressed-history-of-the-analytic-couch-from-plato-to-freud-the-mit-press-9780262036610","title":"On the Couch A Repressed History of the Analytic","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow the couch became an icon of self-knowledge and self-reflection as well as a site for pleasure, transgression, and healing.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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 \u003ci\u003eOn the Couch\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 \u003ci\u003esymposion\u003c\/i\u003e (a gathering for upper-class males to discuss philosophy and drink wine), and to the Roman \u003ci\u003econvivium\u003c\/i\u003e (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 s\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MIT Press Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49083452555607,"sku":"9780262036610","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/on-the-couch-a-repressed-history-of-the-analytic-couch-from-plato-to-freud-the-mit-press-9780262036610","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}