Freud and the Use of Sculptures in his Clinical Practice: A Clinician's Perspective

Dear Editors

I have read Tim Martin's interesting paper (BJP 24(2): 184-96) and am concerned that it could give the impression that Freud regularly made use of his sculpture collection as part of his analytic practice. Martin's interest in the use HD made of Freud's sculpture is pertinent to her psychopathology but to imply that Freud made a practice of using his collection for psychotherapeutic purposes cannot, in my view, be derived from this one example.

This article claims in the title and text that Freud used sculpture in his analytic practice. This gives the impression that Freud regularly made use of these artefacts as part of a psychotherapeutic process. However, Martin acknowledges that Freud ‘never claimed that his sculptures were a direct part of his clinical practice’. He further states that there are a number of accounts of Freud using sculpture in analysis, although what ‘using sculpture in analysis’ means is not clear. As far as I could tell Martin bases his assertion on the fact that as the sculptures were on display in Freud's apartment this suggests that ‘they were an active part of the clinical process’. The question here might be clinical process for whom? It is an interesting point to speculate what role these artefacts had in Freud's practice and how they affected his patients. Clinicians recognize that their consulting room and its contents have emotional significance for their patients but Martin is suggesting that there was an intentional display of artefacts by Freud as an active part of the treatment process. Martin's account records that HD did not ‘notice Freud's presence’ when she came to her first appointment but looked at the objects in his apartment. She appeared to be dissociated and by using one of the objects in his collection Freud was able to make a connection to her. HD records this. Clearly for HD these sculptures were a significant part of her clinical experience. The issue is did the way Freud use the Athena sculpture with HD