In the Floyd Archives is a
clever and humorous collection of cartoons that will appeal to hip
psychoanalysts and students of Freudian theory.  Sarah Boxer draws Dr. Floyd, a
psychoanalytic bird, and his patients Mr. Bunnyman Mr. Wolfman and his alter
ego, Lambskin, and Ratma’am.  The analysis of these patients lasts thirteen
weeks, a remarkably brief therapy, especially considering the seriousness of
their problems.  But Dr. Floyd is a canny practitioner; he even charges
separately for each of a patient’s multiple personalities.  Mr. Wolfman’s
father dressed him up and a lamb when he was a child, and this caused
considerable neurosis.  Mr. Bunnyman thinks he is being pursued by a wolf, and Dr.
Floyd explains to him how his kind is prone to paranoia.  Ratma’am lives in
dirty conditions, and washes 28 times a day, so Dr. Floyd diagnoses a
compulsive disorder.  Throughout the analysis, the patients report dreams and
fantasies reminiscent of some of Freud’s most famous cases, Dora, the Wolfman,
Little Hans, the Rat Man, and Irma’s dream in The Interpretation of Dreams. 
For those readers whose last reading of Freud’s classic works was more than a
few years ago, there are helpful notes at the end of the book to explain the
obscure references.

Link: Publisher’s
web page for In the Floyd Archives

© 2004 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island.
He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main
research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: ArtAndPhotography, Psychoanalysis