We deeply appreciate the creativity and thoughtfulness with which our audiences respond to the collections and exhibitions. Their contributions have a transformational effect on us and continuously shape our practice.
This summer, our students, community members and visitors were engrossed in the story of Freud’s emotional trip to Athens in 1904, which would haunt him for decades, eventually unlocking deeply personal and conceptually rich discoveries about the nature of memory, success and enduring parental influence. Coinciding with our exhibition Tracing Freud on the Acropolis, which explored this momentous trip, our outreach activities took a voyage around the psychoanalytic reflections it stimulated.
Athens had been a mythical place for Freud. Since he was a schoolboy, he developed a life-long fascination with ancient Greek history and culture, which later inspired some of his most prominent ideas, such as those of the Oedipus complex, Eros or Thanatos. Standing on the Acropolis hill at the age of forty-eight, the inventor of the ‘talking cure’ found himself in a state of ‘disbelief’ at having gone ‘so far’ in life, both geographically and metaphorically. He even displaced his doubt into doubt about the existence of the Acropolis itself.
‘By the evidence of my senses I am now standing on the Acropolis, but I cannot believe it… The very theme of Athens and the Acropolis… contained evidence of the son’s superiority. Our father had been a merchant, he had no secondary education, and Athens could not have meant much to him… It seemed to me beyond the realms of possibility that I should travel so far – that I should ‘go such a long way’… This was linked up with the limitations and poverty of our conditions of life in my youth… It must be that a sense of guilt was attached to the satisfaction in having gone such a long way: there was something about it that was wrong, that from earliest times had been forbidden. It was something to do with a child’s criticism of his father, with the undervaluation which took the place of the overvaluation of earlier childhood…. as though the essence of success was to have gone further than one’s father, and as though to excel one’s father was still something forbidden.’ (Freud, 1936).
Freud’s account posed compelling questions about the nature of ambition and the often-overlooked issues marring the experience of success, universal to those climbing metaphorical hills of any kind. Our audiences joined us in reflecting on the complex nature of ambitions, the dreams that feel unreal, the hills that excite us and the climbs that frighten us. Using specially designed postcards asking What is your ‘Acropolis’? , they shared accounts of their own states of ‘disbelief’ and psychological challenges of ‘surpassing’ parents, as well as views on whether a sense of guilt might indeed accompany certain aspirations. Their contributions varied from moving personal stories to opinion pieces. Placed on the Museum’s half landing, as if halfway up or down a hill, surrounded by Freud’s beloved plants, the activity station provided a perfect setting for unrushed reflection.
Simultaneously, our learning sessions explored these topics further. While Freud’s essay might owe its poignancy to the fact that it describes his personal experience, by 1936 when he completed his writing, Freud also had over four decades of clinical practice to draw from. He saw patients haunted by guilt or ‘wrecked by success’. Always attuned to the narratives of those feeling undeserving of recovery from psychic pain, in whose lives suffering played a vital unconscious role, Freud drew sympathetic attention to the unobvious factors hindering therapeutic progress. He witnessed patients’ unconscious loyalty conflicts and fears of symbolically betraying those they loved. His other writings discussed how surpassing others might be unconsciously driven by aggressive impulses, which might give way to a sense of guilt once the conquest is over.
These topics resonated deeply with our community audiences of mental health service users, carers, refugees and the NHS workforce. They captured the imagination of our university students, who often reflected on being the first ones in their families to enter higher education. The What is Your ‘Acropolis’? activity also proved popular with our visitors, many of whom recorded their stories of education and emigration, reflecting Freud’s own. They often evoked the notion of personal happiness in the context of the shadow of parental figures:
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‘My Acropolis is climbing the mountain to find happiness in my life, that special happiness that I did not see my mother experiencing. I feel less guilty only now, at 47, and I enjoy my happiness.’ |
A considerable number of contributions related to personal identity and overcoming limitations imposed by society or the immediate environment, pointing to a sense of disbelief at leading a life that had previously seemed unlikely:
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‘Living free and without shame as a gay man. As a child + teen I could not have imagined it possible.’ |
Another large group of testimonies focused on relationships, hinting at a sense of disbelief at success against all odds:
‘My Acropolis is seeing that my child is a better parent and spouse than I have been.’
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‘My Acropolis is being a loving stepmother despite having a distant and unloving father and narcissistic mother.’ |
Beyond those recurring themes, participants submitted a myriad of generous views and moving stories, with the feeling of ‘disbelief’ running across their accounts like a golden thread:
‘There are those things we see as a hill we will die on, but this exercise made me see how many people actually live on the hills they previously thought they would need to die on. So, maybe it’s a fundamental disbelief that there is a life on top of the hill after all?’
Finally, many of the contributions mentioned the trip to London and the Freud Museum as an Acropolis they had dreamt of – inspired by their therapy, clinical training or simply curiosity sparked by the popular culture. They mentioned a state of disbelief at the fact that ‘the couch really does exist’. Their words afforded us, the custodians of this half-unreal site, precious moments of reflection about everything from the planned improvements to visitor facilities to just how many incredible stories cross paths in this place that means so much to so many.
As 2023 marks the centenary of the publication of Freud’s seminal book The Ego and the Id, we will stay close to the topic of internal conflicts a little longer. However, our associated mini-exhibition will extend a tantalising invitation to all those experiencing a state of disbelief concerning Freud’s couch: its perfect replica will be unveiled and available to recline on. Will this new, more embodied visitor experience diminish or increase their state of disbelief at visiting the original setting of the ‘talking cure’? Only time will tell.
