Click here to read: “The Couch as Icon” by Ahron Friedberg & Louis Linn originally published in The Psychoanalytic Review, volume 99, No. 1, February 2012.

The couch has always been an integral part of psychoanalytic practice. It has even become a cultural icon representing psychoanalysis itself. However, minimal evidence exists in the psychoanalytic literature that using the couch is necessary or even necessarily helpful to establish a psychoanalytic process and conduct an analysis. Furthermore, it can potentially be harmful to patients such as those who have experienced early loss and trauma or who have significant ego organizational prob- lems. Therefore, the use of the couch per se does not seem well suited as a defining criterion of psychoanalysis. To the extent that it may be clinically valuable, the use of the couch should be more carefully con- sidered and critically examined.

Click here to read: “On Sulking” by Dr Joseph Berke.

Sulking is a state of sullen resentment, irritability and negativity manifested by and through extreme inactivity. It is a key to understanding many self destructive phenomena including the refusal to talk, to eat or to thrive. Moreover, in therapy or analysis, sulking often lies behind the negative therapeutic reaction. Most severely, conditions such as paranoia, somatic psychoses, and manic episodes may signify intense, unremitting, unrestrained sulking…