Which couch should be England’s most iconic item of furniture?

You might look in North London, at the Freud Museum. Famously, this was in Freud’s London lodgings (where patients visited his distinguished consulting rooms and lounger), after leaving Austria just ahead of Nazi occupation — the Anschluss — in the late thirties. The centerpiece is his study, precisely as it was in his time, and located there is London’s best known seat, punchline to myriad cartoons and one-liners.

The recliner itself wasn’t purchased in Hampstead, however. Freud employed the same seating when he was still operating out of Berggasse 19 in Vienna. As you may know, this is the address of Freud’s house while to develop his pioneering psychotherapeutic theories. The settee under discussion — comfortable, comfy and casual — is unsurprisingly well-known, given its critical part during his work. Probably not such common knowledge is the preservation of the father of psychiatry’s own seat. The armchair is where he carefully placed himself, behind the patients on the sofa, while they “free associated”. Put simply, psychotherapy, comfortable seating and everything else often linked to theories are a rich font of humor for cartoonists, comedians and so on from the beginning, and maybe the smartest funnyman in this regard is Woody Allen, a student, a patient and an observer of psychoanalysts (also known as shrinks) for just about forty years.

“My poor analyst got so frustrated, the guy finally put in a salad bar. ”

“I’m treating two sets of Siamese twins with split personalities. I’m getting paid by eight people.” Many others notice humor in psychiatry, psychotherapists and their couches. Fictional psychiatrist Niles Crane showcases the lighter aspects of his line of work: “Although I feel perfectly qualified to fill Frasier’s radio shoes, I should warn you that while Frasier is a Freudian, I am a Jungian. So there’ll be no blaming Mother today!” We must offer the last word to John Wayne, who didn’t have much time for the psychiatrist’s couch: “I stick to simple themes. Love. Hate. No nuances. I stay away from psychoanalyst’s couch scenes. Couches are good for one thing.”