CBS News
In this web-exclusive interview, Mark Gerald talked to Susan Spencer about the evolution of analyst's office space since the time of Sigmund Freud; the importance of objects and artwork for both analyst and analysand; and the ubiquitous couch.
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New York Times
“I think psychoanalysis is undergoing an enormous change, and I’m not sure we’re even going to have offices in the future,” Dr. Gerald said. “So there’s something about where we are as a field that seems important to set down for the record.”
Dr. Gerald began his project by photographing himself. He then asked analyst friends to sit for portraits. Gradually, he sought out analysts he did not know, and somewhat to his surprise found them generally amenable, some even bringing a change of clothes to the shoot.
His approach to his subjects would seem to borrow something from his gentle couchside manner.
“It’s important for me to help the person who’s there to recognize that we’re working together,” Dr. Gerald said, “that I’m not staring at them; that I’m looking at them but need their help in seeing them.”
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American Psychological Association
Gerald writes that professional offices are more than simply a workspace as we bring to the spaces memories of all the homes we have inhabited. To this end, the photographs are stimulating in a manner admittedly somewhat voyeuristic but importantly, quite different from a centerfold. Certainly, we are treated to a subject matter that is not what we typically see in photographs – other practitioners in their offices to be specific. This is the land of intimate encounters. But these photographs do not trivialize the intimacy. Simply, the photographs are inviting and loving.
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Fstop Magazine
"“In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch” is a deeply (and refreshingly) personal book."
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Kinfolk Magazine
The image of a wizened European gentleman with deeply furrowed brows is as much a part of the psychoanalyst’s office trope as the couch: a Freud figure ap- pears in nearly every New Yorker cartoon on the subject, of which there are many. But this stereotype has had its day, and good riddance, says Gerald. “I’m especially interested in showing the face of psychoanalysis today, and challenging the stereotype that it’s a deadened practice occupied by old white men,” he says. Rather than focusing on any one orthodox method, or aesthetic, individuality in psychoanalysis is now not only accepted, but cele- brated. “People entering the field today are primarily women from diverse backgrounds,” says Gerald. “The common thread now is the protection and appreciation of the unconscious world.”
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The New York Jewish Week
A 15-year project, the book is a work of art and insight, opening up a world that’s usually closed. Gerald has a good eye for composition, and he includes stories behind the full-color photographs, weaving in his own life, the history and theory of psychoanalysis, some self-analysis, views of design, poetic reflections on photography and moments of humor.
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