Editorial

Freud's analytic couch is one of the most famous pieces of furniture in the world, both feared and revered as a metonymic image of the psychoanalytic process. For visitors to the Freud Museum in London, it is an object of fascination. Everyone longs to lie on it. And yet one is always struck by its homeliness. It is a typical domestic divan of its time, nothing special; a scroll-ended couch upholstered in plain beige cloth. These divans were intended to be covered, perhaps with velvet cloth or, as here, with a rug. The rug is a Qasqa'i, made in Iran. There are embroidered and deep-pile velvet cushions heaped on it. Above it hangs a lithograph of the painting Une Leçon Clinique à la Salpêtrière by André Brouillet , showing Charcot displaying to colleagues his patient Blanche Wittman, in a state of hypnosis. The general effect is a blend of the domestic and the clinical. Before Freud, the patient's life and illness were kept separate and patients were seen solely as objects of study by the doctor. By listening to his patients, Freud linked their subjective experiences to the objective moment of therapy. The fact that dreams and everyday matters were the currency of this treatment made it accessible to everyone.

He listened to them; he made them physically comfortable, he sat out of sight to help maintain some emotional distance but also because he didn't want to be stared at all day long; as he grew older post-operative infections damaged his hearing on the right side so that he had to reverse the position of the couch and chair in order to hear his patients. Thus the analytic couch is both a powerful symbol and a useful reminder of Freud's and his patients' human realities.

Throughout 2006, which brings the 150th anniversary of Freud's birth, we shall be publishing a number of papers inspired by Freud and his work and we welcome further contributions to this.

The papers in this issue reflect some of the variety of our mutual endeavour, the inheritance of the couch, stil