On the Couch: Twenty Extraordinary Personalities, from Picasso to Putin

Psychotherapist Andrew Jamieson considers ten key principles of psychoanalysis and illuminates them through psychobiographies of twenty extraordinary people, including Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Cary Grant, and Marilyn Monroe.

In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud began to develop radical theories about sexuality, dreams, and childhood experiences. Not only were his ideas revolutionary, but they also initiated a new discipline with various -- often competing -- schools of thought.

In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Jamieson unpacks ten of psychotherapy’s most profound principles and illuminates them through the biographies of twenty remarkable people. From Pablo Picasso’s chaotic life, which illustrated Freud’s concept of the unconscious, to the origins of Nelson Mandela’s compassion, which exemplify Carl Jung’s notion of individuation; from John Bowlby’s attachment theory, as seen through the lives of Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka, to Melanie Klein’s views on the relationship between love and hate, as revealed through the experiences of Cary Grant, On the Couch throws new light on the motivations and desires of some of our most memorable personalities.

Other lives examined include Josephine Baker, Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Viktor Frankl, Ernest Hemingway, Burt Hellinger, Emma Jung, Angela Merkel, Marilyn Monroe, Vladimir Putin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.B. Yeats.

Andrew Jamieson trained at the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling and received an MA in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy at Middlesex University. He lectures and writes on psychotherapy’s interconnection with philosophy, music, and literature. His most recent book is Midlife: Humanity’s Secret Weapon. Parallel to his psychotherapeutic career, he has promoted orchestral concerts throughout the UK for over forty years.