TALKING CURE

Bella Freud's podcast, "Fashion Neurosis," was born of obsession-and childhood trauma.

- BY REBECCA MEAD

Freud, who has a clothing line, is a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and a child of the artist Lucian Freud.

Sigmund Freud, in an essay from 1913 on the nascent practice of psychoanalysis, argued for "a certain ceremonial observance" in the configuration of a consulting room. "I adhere firmly to the plan of requiring the patient to recline on a sofa, while one sits behind him out of sight," he wrote. This arrangement conveniently spared the analyst-"I cannot bear to be gazed at for eight hours a day," Freud remarked-while allowing the patient to speak without inhibition. Supine on a Persian-rug-draped couch, Freud's patients were instructed to say whatever came to mind, "as if you were sitting at the window of a railway train and describing to someone behind you the changing views you see outside."

Bella Freud, a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, hasn't read much of her illustrious ancestor's work, though she did once get halfway through "The Interpretation of Dreams." She has, however, benefitted from years of therapy based on the insights of psychoanalysis, including the notion that a particular kind of talking can lead to relief from burdensome ways of being. She recently said of seeing a therapist, "I like having someone that's got my back-someone for myself. And then there is 'Oh, my God, why am I still doing this? Or why do I still feel like that?""