Psychoanalytic Couch

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 seventy 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.

• About the author On the couch/divã/divan/diván/diwan: key considerations regarding the English editionLucas KrügerPrefaceDaniel KupermannOpeningPART I — Listening perspectivesChapter 1. Sigmund Freud's couch-reminiscenceChapter 2. The couch, the child who lives in the adult, and the technical daring of Sándor FerencziChapter 3. The couch-body of Donald Woods WinnicottChapter 4. Didier Anzieu's skin couchChapter 5. André Green's couch — the dream model, other contributions and misreadingsChapter 6. Thomas Ogden and privacy on the couchChapter 7. Christopher Bollas and the evocative couchChapter 8. A distant couch in Jacques Lacan?Chapter 9. René Roussillon's couch in latencyChapter 10. The analyst's creative process and the couch for Melanie KleinChapter 11. Wilfred Bion's embryonic couchChapter 12. James Grotstein's dramaturgical and neuropsychic couchChapter 13. The Couch as an Aid to a Filmic Script in John Munder RossChapter 14. Other authors and different approaches to psychoanalytic work from the couchChapter 15. Brief final commentsPART II — The poetics of psychoanalysisChapter 1. Introduction — An analyst’s theoretical and clinical practice in dialogue with othersChapter 2. Some considerations on the history and etymology of the word couch/divan/diwanChapter 3. Play as the essence of the psychoanalytic processChapter 4. The psychic regions and the cloud stateChapter 5. The cloud, condensation and poetic creation: reflections on Dichter, Dichtung andVerdichtungChapter 6. Symbolic vesture and its clinical presentations in the cloud stateChapter 7. The couch/diwan and the cloud metaphor in the clinicFinal WordsExtrasCreation poemProvocative Considerations on Remote Online Sessions: The need for the couch or a substitute other than the gazeReferences

“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)