Author: Julian Baggini

Shellburne Thurber’s images of consulting rooms

Articles & Essays, The Shrink and The Sage

American photographer Shellburne Thurber’s images of consulting rooms reveal the tensions of psychoanalysis. The “patient” lies on the couch, as though receiving medical treatment. At the same time, the walls are lined with books, paintings and objets d’art, telling us this is not a hospital but a site of intellectual endeavour. So is psychoanalysis a “talking cure” for the sick or a creative, humanistic exploration of the psyche? The ambiguous set-up of the therapeutic space suggests it is a little of both.

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The Death of the Dining Room

Articles & Essays, Food

Eating at table should not be equated with formality and outmoded etiquette. Its main association should be conviviality. We sit around a table, but in front of the TV. We eat together at the table, but merely at the same time elsewhere. Even when eating alone, however, dispensing with a dining table comes at a cost. When we have our meals while doing other things we are not eating, we are merely feeding. We cease paying attention to what we are ingesting and our food becomes mere fuel.

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