Couch

This is perhaps a fantasy of the healing alliance between psychoanalyst and patient; the facial expressions of the reclining ‘patient’ sweep across the emotional map, moving from pain and vulnerability to flirtatiousness and love. The patient is naked, as in the Freudian dream of nakedness, where the true self is revealed, all pretence dropped. The two embrace, the besuited arms of the sitting ‘doctor’ hugging the other. The embrace is both sexual and tender. Our normal preconceptions of the therapeutic relationship are threatened.’ – Abina Manning