On the Couch

Twenty Extraordinary Personalities, from Picasso to Putin

Andrew Jamieson

• Publisher: Notting Hill Editions
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781912559824
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

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 illustrates 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.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sigmund Freud’s Theory of the Unconscious (Pablo Picasso)
• Carl Jung’s Concept of Individuation (Nelson Mandela)
• Carl Jung and Viktor Frankl’s Theories of Meaning (Carl Jung, Josephine Baker, Viktor Frankl)
• Melanie Klein’s Theory of Ambivalence and The Depressive Position (Melanie Klein, Emma Jung, Cary Grant)
• John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka)
• Carl Jung, Carl Rogers and Donald Winnicott: The Pressures of the Collective (Charles Darwin, Nicolaus Copernicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein)
• Intersubjectivity and Intimacy (W. B. Yeats, Marilyn Monroe)
• Sigmund Freud: Eros and Thanatos (Sigmund Freud, Bert Hellinger, Ernest Hemingway)
• The Shadow (Vladimir Putin)
• Anima and Animus (Angela Merkel)
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright