1st Edition
The Psychoanalytic Couch Listening Perspectives and the Poetics of Psychoanalysis
About the author
On the couch/divã/divan/diván/diwan: key considerations regarding the English edition
Lucas Krüger
Preface
Daniel Kupermann
Opening
PART I — Listening perspectives
Chapter 1. Sigmund Freud's couch-reminiscence
Chapter 2. The couch, the child who lives in the adult, and the technical daring of Sándor Ferenczi
Chapter 3. The couch-body of Donald Woods Winnicott
Chapter 4. Didier Anzieu's skin couch
Chapter 5. André Green's couch — the dream model, other contributions and misreadings
Chapter 6. Thomas Ogden and privacy on the couch
Chapter 7. Christopher Bollas and the evocative couch
Chapter 8. A distant couch in Jacques Lacan?
Chapter 9. René Roussillon's couch in latency
Chapter 10. The analyst's creative process and the couch for Melanie Klein
Chapter 11. Wilfred Bion's embryonic couch
Chapter 12. James Grotstein's dramaturgical and neuropsychic couch
Chapter 13. The Couch as an Aid to a Filmic Script in John Munder Ross
Chapter 14. Other authors and different approaches to psychoanalytic work from the couch
Chapter 15. Brief final comments
PART II — The poetics of psychoanalysis
Chapter 1. Introduction — An analyst’s theoretical and clinical practice in dialogue with others
Chapter 2. Some considerations on the history and etymology of the word couch/divan/diwan
Chapter 3. Play as the essence of the psychoanalytic process
Chapter 4. The psychic regions and the cloud state
Chapter 5. The cloud, condensation and poetic creation: reflections on Dichter, Dichtung and
Verdichtung
Chapter 6. Symbolic vesture and its clinical presentations in the cloud state
Chapter 7. The couch/diwan and the cloud metaphor in the clinic
Final Words
Extras
Creation poem
Provocative Considerations on Remote Online Sessions: The need for the couch or a substitute other than the gaze
References
Biography
Lucas Krüger is a psychoanalyst, writer, musician, translator and editor based in Brazil. He is the author of books on psychoanalysis, poetry and children’s literature, and has edited over 70 titles. His work bridges psychoanalysis and the arts while bringing the field’s historical legacy into dialogue with contemporary practice, raising new questions for clinical reflection.
“In this remarkable and original book, the Brazilian psychoanalyst Lucas Krüger examines the origins and development of psychoanalysis, taking as a guide an essential yet neglected part of the analytic setting: the couch. In his tour de force, Krüger shows the different ways in which analysts from different periods and schools have reflected on and conceptualized the presence and possible roles of the couch and its unconscious meanings. In the second part of this fascinating journey, the author connects psychoanalysis with poetry and art and develops his own insights and reflections on his original formulation of the “cloud state.” I strongly recommend The Psychoanalytic Couch, both for seasoned analysts and for newcomers, as a guide to discover or rediscover the basis of this fascinating field through the eyes and the pen of an author who demonstrates a talented ability to dive with elegance and precision into the infinite seas of psychoanalysis and poetry.” - Cláudio Laks Eizirik Professor Emeritus, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; Former President of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA)
