The Freud Museum

 

I did not want to go to the Freud Museum. I did not imagine I would actually kind of push myself to go on a sleepy Saturday, as some strange attempt at feeding my creative artistic inner child. Off I went, all the same. I was immersed for a good two and a half hours in the world of a intellectual I have had little if no interest in. I suppose we have to keep open minds.

Parts of the museum I really enjoyed were the exhibits on child psychology and Anna Freud, who was a teacher before following in her father's foot steps to become a psychoanalyst. Apparently she was analysed by her own father, which is quite a strange thought. How would that work out exactly?

I also enjoyed standing in Freud's study and studying his great collection of ancient relics. It put me in mind of my little rock collect which is in it's early stages (the childhood one being probably missing somewhere), and of my own interest in archaeology as a child. I think I probably agree now that in order to understand how the mind came to be in it's present state, we have to understand some of it's past, and go digging for that which is repressed, and is buried treasures.

In the study there is a reference to the story of a archaeologist, who became obsessed with a image of an ancient woman, Gradiva, and finally discovers he is searching for his long lost childhood sweet heart. He had repressed his sexuality with archaeology, and through archaeology the repression was undone....

... (???!!!)..

Yes well, I couldn't help think that archaeologist hadn't been the only one. The museum as a good place to come to start coming to terms with the existence of the 'other world', and the after effects of having it erupt into your conscious world. It is worth another visit, despite my general indifference to Freud.

The gift shop is classic, and it is worth paying the eight pounds just to have the pleasure of encountering Freudian slippers, and to read the titles and blurbs of the many books.

What a strange day this was, what a very strange day.

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