The Study
 |
Freud used this room as his office and library; it was connected to his consulting room where he met his patients. As you can see, the room was cluttered with books and art work. Freud was a passionate collector of ancient art for over 40 years. His study contained some 2,000 sculptures from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East and Asia. Some of the antiquities Freud collected are now housed in the Freud Museum in London. For a closer look at this collection, click on this link - "Freud's art". To see a photo of Freud taken in his study in 1905, click on the link.
Freud once stated, he read more about archeology than psychology (Gay, 1989). "The psychoanalyst, like the archaeologist in his excavations, must uncover layer after layer of the patient's psyche before coming to the deepest most valuable treasures" (Gay, 1989, p. 16). He saw archeology as a great metaphor for psychoanalysis: just as we study ancient art to understand something about past civilizations so might we study ourselves by digging into our past, into our memories to find out what lies beneath the surface and possibly explains our current conflicts and behaviors.
The desk where Freud worked is located in the bottom right corner of this picture. To take a closer look at the desk where Freud did his writing, click on the link below.