Conclusion
This discussion, I hope, exposes the invalidity of the question: Is the couch better than the chair? The productive question is “What position and what moving from one physical position to another is better at a particular time for a particular patient to help move analysis forward more effectively, with a saving of energy and time, and a minimum of unnecessary pain?” The discussion of the use of the couch opened up the question of how to help a patient avail himself effectively of the advantages of physical mobility in the analytic situation. We can then ask how we can use physical mobility to support and encourage all dimensions of mobility in our patients for helping them grow toward self-realization. The discussion of the couch led to the difficult problem of acting-out and of the way more patients can be helped—and can use the couch effectively in getting that help.
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Additional information
Dr. Kelman, M.D., Harvard, 1931, D.Md.Sc., Columbia, 1938, is a diplomate of the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is president of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis and a lecturer there and at the New School for Social Research. This paper was read before the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis at an Interval Meeting on November 8, 1953.
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Kelman, H. The use of the analytic couch. Am J Psychoanal 14, 65–82 (1954). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01872227
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01872227