What lounger could very well be Britain’s foremost piece of furniture? Could you say where it is? Check in the famed Freud Museum, Hampstead. The Museum is located in Freud’s London household, where he treated patients. Safeguarded as it was is Freud’s study, exactly as it was in his era, and located in the study is his settee, nesting place of several complexes, featured in innumerable satires and skits. The recliner itself isn’t British in origin, however. It was already heading toward fame while still in place at Vienna’s Berggasse 19. This is the address of Freud’s house while to develop his famous psychotherapeutic theories. The recliner under discussion (casual, comfy and inviting) is unsurprisingly famous, considering its essential place during the development of psychoanalysis. This tends to overshadow the fact that his own seat resides in the same room. This armchair is where he worked, hidden from the patients on the chaise longue, during their “free association”. Put simply, free association, couches and all the other ideas regularly related to psychoanalysis remain an abundant source of jokes for performers, comedians etc. from the start, and none have done more with this than Woody Allen, a man extremely familiar with analysts (AKA shrinks) for about 40 years.

“My analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful I got another analyst”

“I’m treating two sets of Siamese twins with split personalities. I’m getting paid by eight people.”

Isaac Davis: Hey, you call that guy that you talk to a doctor? I mean, you don’t get suspicious when your analyst calls you at home at three in the morning and weeps into the telephone? Mary Wilke: Alright, so he’s unorthodox. He’s a highly qualified doctor. Isaac Davis: He done a great job on you, you know? Your self-esteem is a notch below Kafka.

There are many comics who come across wisdom in psychotherapists, psychiatry and their couches. Sitcom character Niles Crane says: “I really must run. I’m due at my sexual addiction group, and I don’t like to leave them alone for too long.”

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More from Dr. Niles Crane, perhaps? He’s also commented “I have a session with my multiple personality. Not to worry: if I’m late, he can just talk amongst himself.”

Also, there’s the old carrot: “Psychiatrists do it on the couch.”

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