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Rooms as replacements for people: the consulting room as a room object

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Abstract

Within the fields of anthropology, history, art and architectural history there is literature suggesting the importance of the use and meaning of location, place, space and rooms for people and their mechanism for representing others. Sigmund Freud wrote about the meaning of space for humans in relation to ritual and symbolisation, and had an enduring interest in the meanings of location and rooms. This included representations of his mother and his fiancée within room spaces. I argue that the historical tradition relating to the representation of people in spaces can be applied to the consulting room, relating to the patient’s memories and associations with the meanings of the room itself, as well as in the transference to the therapist.

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Wright, D. (2018). Rooms as replacements for people: the consulting room as a room object. In: Owen, J., Segal, N. (eds) On Replacement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76011-7_24

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