CEL Learning and Teaching Fellow Dr Laura Bunt-MacRury arranged for a student trip as part of her year of development… read on..
By Jasmine Aloma

Located on an unassuming suburban street in Finchley Road lays 20 Maresfield Gardens, which is also known as the Freud Museum (https://www.freud.org.uk). One would be forgiven to not know that back in 1938, one of the worlds’ greatest psychoanalysts lived here along with his wife and famous child psychoanalyst daughter Anna Freud, for one year before his death in 1939. However, on November 9th, a group of lucky Psychology of the Media students and I had a chance to take a journey inside.

Full of original belongings and the original couch were Freud analysed his patients with the formative beginnings of free association and dream analysis, it felt like walking into a time machine. The house has been kept in great order, with all rooms in top condition and a brilliant gift shop at the back of the house, for a chance to grab any Freud souvenirs before departure.

We were greeted by one of the museums volunteers Stefan Marianski who explained Freud’s journey to London. As a Jewish scholar in World War Two, Vienna was rapidly becoming an unsafe place to inhibit, with the Nazi Regime pulling in closer. With his health in decline, Freud was forced to exile and spend his final days in London with his family. He was lucky enough to bring his much-beloved antiques and various artefacts from around the world with him, recreating his study and consulting room here in London, where he took up his professional practise until the last weeks of his life.

The most intriguing room was his study, arguably the centrepiece of the house. Intricate items filled the cabinets and shelves, with rows of ancient figures on his desk and even his original chair where he was said to work until the early hours of the morning. However, among the ornate shelves and cabinets, the original and iconic psychoanalytic couch arguably stood out the most. To know that real patients of Freud lay there to reveal their upmost private details and dreams was extraordinary.

The trip all in all was a great experience, giving me the opportunity to learn more about the psychoanalyst who influenced many scholars after him such as Melanie Klein, Lacan and Winnicott to name a few. The preservation of such a historically important place is important and I will definitely return to walk through the halls of the Freud Museum again!