Sep 1, 2014
Was Shakespeare a psychotherapist?
Raj Persaud in conversation with Paul Coombe
Paul Coombe is a psychiatrist and individual and group psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Melbourne, Australia. He was formerly Consultant Child Psychiatrist at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. He was also the Overseas Senior Registrar in Psychotherapy at the Cassel Hospital, London from 1990 to 1993. He is the Immediate Past President of the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists and member of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australia.
The reason we are talking to Paul is that this year marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, and Paul has recently published an academic paper entitled 'William Shakespeare as Psychotherapist' in the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies (Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10(4): 334--348 (2013))
Paul describes several arguments from the academic world including the startling claim that Shakespeare invents the modern human by creating characters such as Hamlet who think hard about themselves and publicly discourse about their inner lives and conflicts. In a sense then Shakespeare paves the way for us to contemplate ourselves and perhaps even therefore anticipates psychotherapy.
For more information see this accessible article:
http://rajpersaud.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/why-was-shakespeare-performed-inside-broadmoor-hospital-a-high-security-psychiatric-unit-raj-persaud-and-peter-bruggen/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/shakespeare-performed-at-broadmoor_b_5224537.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-entertainment&ir=UK+Entertainment
Why was Shakespeare performed inside Broadmoor Hospital - a high-security psychiatric unit?
Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/shakespeare-performed-at-broadmoor_b_5224537.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-entertainment&ir=UK+Entertainment