The Psychoanalytic Couch: Listening Perspectives and the Poetics of Psychoanalysis

The Psychoanalytic Couch offers a comprehensive overview and a poetic rethinking of the psychoanalytic couch. Part I presents an extensive study of how the couch has been implicitly or explicitly theorised by major figures in the field, including Freud, Ferenczi, Winnicott, Bion, Bollas, Ogden, Green, and Lacan, by extracting, organising, and developing their dispersed contributions on the subject. Part II moves into the poetic and etymological realm of the word diwan, tracing its roots to Persian and Arabic traditions. Krüger develops an original model for clinical listening and intervention, where the “cloud state” plays an important role in analytic technique. Concepts such as condensation (Verdichtung), symbolic vesture and the structuring of psychic regions are reinterpreted through this prism, offering a new way to conceptualize transference and analytic presence. The book fulfils a significant gap in psychoanalytic theory and training by elevating a central yet neglected clinical element to conceptual prominence. The Psychoanalytic Couch will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and for readers interested in the intersections between psychoanalysis, art and literature.