Squeezed between lectures is a 10 minute break where students can go to the bathroom, get a drink of water or have a cigarette. In this time, I usually take a quick walk around the campus to move my legs and squint at the sunshine. Thus far, I’ve made unconventional routes through Glebe and once, accidentally through the construction site which has over-run the university during the summer break. Today, I made my walk through the famous Quadrangle, home to the higher-level administration and the meticulously cut, photogenic lawns that host graduation ceremonies. I wandered into the Nicholson museum and there was a wonderful little exhibition – Sigmund Freud’s Collection: An Archaeology of the Mind. Amongst the antiquities are some charming photographs of the man at work and home movies made by his daughter Anna.
There is also his famous couch.
I still like Freud. No one in the field of psychology seems to. There appears to be a general dismissal of the man and his theories, as well as a minor irritation about the wide-scale appeal and influence of his ideas. The pursuit for scientific knowledge flushes out anything that can’t be proven with statistics and solid evidence, so Freud gets taught in peculiar subjects by even stranger scholars wedged in odd pockets of the Arts faculty. I wonder if there is a study on how people interpret his theories in everyday life. There has to be some scientific explanation as to why he is so popular to this day and why ‘Freud for Beginners’ always graces the bookshop shelves.
There’s a series of lectures and talks coinciding with the exhibition, you can check them out here.
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