Thanks Mariam Ahmad for this information,

Regards

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/headshrinkers-guide-the-galaxy/201404/whats-the-couch-got-do-it

One recent paper at On Murray Jackson's 1961 ‘Chair, couch and countertransference’.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12163

By Connolly, Angela

The Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol 60(4), Sep 2015, 449-461.

One of the problems facing psychoanalysts of all schools is that theory has evolved at a much faster pace than practice. Whereas there has been an explosion of theory, practice has remained, at least officially, static and unchanging. It is in this sense that Murray Jackson's 1961 paper is still relevant today. Despite the rise of the new relational and intersubjective paradigms, most psychoanalysts, and not a few Jungian analysts, still seem to feel that the couch is an essential component of the analytical setting and process. If the use of the couch is usually justified by the argument that it favours regression, facilitates analytical reverie and protects the patient from the influence of the analyst, over time many important psychoanalysts have come to challenge this position. Increasingly these analysts suggest that the use of the couch may actually be incompatible with the newer theoretical models. This contention is strengthened by some of the findings coming from the neurosciences and infant research. This underlines the necessity of empirical research to verify the clinical effectiveness of these different positions, couch or face‐to‐face, but it is exactly this type of research that is lacking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

Another related paper The analytic setting today: Using the couch or the chair?

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12164

By Wiener, Jan

The Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol 60(4), Sep 2015, 462-476.

This paper re‐visits Murray Jackson's 1961 paper in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, ‘Chair, couch and countertransference’, with the aim of exploring the role of the couch for Jungian analysts in clinical practice today. Within the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) and some other London‐based societies, there has been an evolution of practice from face‐to‐face sessions with the patient in the chair, as was Jung's preference, to a mode of practice where patients use the couch with the analyst sitting to the side rather than behind, as has been the tradition in psychoanalysis. Fordham was the founding member of the SAP and it was because of his liaison with psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts that this cultural shift came about. Using clinical examples, the author explores the couch/chair question in terms of her own practice and the internal setting as a structure in her mind. With reference to Bleger's (2013) paper ‘Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic setting’, the author discusses how the analytic setting, including use of the couch or the chair, can act as a silent container for the most primitive aspects of the patient's psyche which will only emerge in analysis when the setting changes or is breached. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

An interesting related discussion The voice behind the couch: Whatever happened to the blank screen?

By Collins, Sara

Bellman, Debbie Bandler (Ed); Arundale, Jean (Ed), (2015). Interpretive voices: Responding to patients. , (pp. 1-26). London, England: Karnac Books, xvii, 230 pp.

The analyst’s interpretative voice, coming as it does from behind the couch, is a powerful tool, unique to psychoanalysis, which sets it apart from other forms of human interaction. Every analyst must find his own interpretive voice, and psychoanalytic theories of technique seek to articulate the nature and quality of that voice. This chapter explores and defines a particular aspect of the analytic voice. The fact that interpretations are being heard from behind the couch has given rise to assumptions about the presence or absence of feelings on the part of the analyst. The analyst’s response, based on the emotional experience with the patient, initially sidelined in the history of psychoanalysis, has taken on a more central role. I start by looking at the origins of interpretation from the inception of psychoanalysis with Freud, his use of the couch, free association, the rule of abstinence, and the “blank screen”. This leads to a focus on theoretical developments regarding the role of the analyst’s emotions in forming interpretations. I explore the complex matrix of opinions on the salient issue of the analyst’s feeling-based interpretations. In contrast with the term “blank screen”, I describe the analytic empathic voice as functioning like an “affective screen”, thus uncoupling this term from its historical predecessor. This distinction emerges from a theoretical journey that investigates the meanings and misconceptions of the interpretive voice as a “blank screen”. It also shows how contemporary influences have led to my new phrasing of an empathic analytic voice in the countertransference as an “affective screen”. It is a screen, a function within the analyst, that receives and registers projections as unconscious communications from the patient. By way of interpretation, the analyst reflects the patient’s unconscious split-off or repressed affect. This is done through the analyst’s experience in the countertransference. I shall illustrate this with clinical vignettes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

Dear Miriam, 

every orthodox psychoanalyst  uses the couch in Finland. It was not for Freuds convenience invented, it was for the client's. The psychoanalyst sits behind the client, who is then free to express whatever comes to mind. I have visited Freud's facilities in Berggasse 19 Vienna: 

Hi  I few remarks. Mutual and joint gaze, from a developmental perspective, iis interrupted on the couch resulting in a sense of the loss of the "primary" object relationship and regression to try and 'find' the object.  The " search" can take on a wish to comply or an attempts to bring on the analysts voice. My training analysis was on the couch and that was physically too small for me, I had built a larger custom couch because I had a a few tall patients. However, I did not manage to get patients who could afford an analysis or could tolerate the separateness of being  out of sight. Aside from Freud not being tolerant of being looked at .... the couch was part of hypnotic technique .

Hi  I few remarks. Mutual and joint gaze, from a developmental perspective, iis interrupted on the couch resulting in a sense of the loss of the "primary" object relationship and regression to try and 'find' the object.  The " search" can take on a wish to comply or an attempts to bring on the analysts voice. My training analysis was on the couch and that was physically too small for me, I had built a larger custom couch because I had a a few tall patients. However, I did not manage to get patients who could afford an analysis or could tolerate the separateness of being  out of sight. Aside from Freud not being tolerant of being looked at .... the couch was part of hypnotic technique .