Brett Kahr
Biographic Data
| ID | 4055179 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brett Kahr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brett |
| FAMILY NAME | Kahr |
| SIGNATURE | KAHR B |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
James William Anderson, Psychobiography
Bombs in the Consulting Room
New Horizons in Forensic Psychotherapy
Coffee with Freud
Tea with Winnicott
Dr Paul Weston and the bloodstained couch
Dr Paul Weston has blood on his couch & quite literally. In the midst of a marital psychotherapy session with a warring couple, the pregnant wife miscarries her foetus and leaves a mark on Dr Westo
"Winnicott's " Anni Horribiles
Donald Winnicott's 1949 paper "Hate in the Counter-transference" has come to occupy an important place in the psychoanalytic literature, both as a feisty critique of mid-twentieth-century biological psychiatry and as a brave statement about the burdens of working psychotherapeutically with very ill patients. Hitherto, scholars have devoted little attention to this classic work, and have not explored the biographical and cultural contexts in which…
Baseball Caps, Overcoats, Orange Suits, and Neckties
Baseball Caps, Overcoats, Orange Suits, and Neckties:On Patients and Their Clothing Brett Kahr I should like to begin with a cautionary tale. Some years ago, a very frightened and suspicious gentleman came to see me for a consultation. Mr. W. told me immediately that he had already tried to engage with a psychotherapist once before, but that he found my colleague to be reprehensible. I inquired delicately as to the nature of his discontent, and h…
The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf Brett Kahr Recently, I visited the new home of two dear old friends. Both lawyers, they had moved from a large house on the outskirts of London into a reasonably small flat in the center of town. In order to accommodate their more modest spatial circumstances, my friends had done a “cull” of their personal library. Apparently, they had no choice. But, I wondered, how could they possibly decide which books would be executed. As the h…
On Painting the Consulting Room
Defending Lady Macbeth
Defending Lady Macbeth:Testimony of an Expert Witness Brett Kahr The telephone rang. "Brett, would you be free next Sunday night to be an expert witness in the 'Lady Macbeth' murder trial at the Royal Courts of Justice? I'm defending her." "Excuse me?" "It's an event for charity. The Criminal Bar Association . . . to raise money for young barristers. It will be great fun." The caller did not identify herself. She did not have to. I recognized the…
Four Unknown Freud Anecdotes
Four Unknown Freud Anecdotes Brett Kahr "In psychoanalysis details are often of supreme importance for conveying understanding and conviction." —J. C. Flügel, "Psychoanalysis: Its Status and Promise" (1930) The British journal Psychoanalysis and History recently published a brief communication written by the late Dr. Lydia Marinelli (2009), the distinguished Austrian Freud scholar, about the actual tweed cap that Sigmund Freud wore during his fli…
Tissues
Tissues Brett Kahr Every year, I spend a comparatively large amount of money on tissues. No doubt many householders purchase a few boxes of tissues from time to time, but I do so perhaps more regularly than most. I suspect that the young woman who operates the cash register at Boots the Chemist on Hampstead High Street must find me a bit dotty. Each month, I come into the shop and instead of purchasing shampoo, nail clippers, shaving foam, or asp…
Musings of a Musicophiliac
Musings of a Musicophiliac Brett Kahr Although Sigmund Freud never played a musical instrument and, by all accounts, did not particularly relish musical performances, the vast majority of mental health professionals whom I know both professionally and socially cherish musical experience deeply. In one clinical organization to which I belong, we boast an eminent classical composer who has written pieces for the British royal family, but who now pr…
The Ten-Minute Gap
The Ten-Minute Gap Brett Kahr Every morning, I unlock the door to my consulting room at 6:45 a.m. I do so for several reasons. First of all, I need to ensure that I arrive well before my first patient, whose sessions begin at 7:00 a.m. Additionally, I must switch on the lights, turn on the heating on winter days, and place two large tissues over the pillow on the couch so that each patient will have a hygienic coverlet on which to rest the head. …
A Night at the Opera
A Night at the Opera:The Freudians at Covent Garden Brett Kahr Although Great Britain boasts approximately eight thousand psychotherapists registered with either the British Psychoanalytic Council or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy—the two principal professional bodies for psychotherapists in this country—we have, at present, only thirty-five fully accredited marital psychotherapists, or, as we have recently become known, "couple psy…
How to Make 120,000 People Happy in Just Ten Weeks
How to Make 120,000 People Happy in Just Ten Weeks Brett Kahr I am seated in a swish leather banquette, discreetly tucked away in the alcove of a bustling, sun-streaked restaurant in Waterloo, South London, just a stone's throw from the Old Vic Theatre, lunching with a very attractive, dynamic Welshwoman called Patricia Llewellyn—"Pat" to her friends—one of Great Britain's most enterprising independent television producers. I have known Pat for s…
I Suffer from Karnacitis
I Suffer from Karnacitis Brett Kahr A year or so ago, I read an obituary in The New York Times of the American author, intellectual, and critic, Susan Sontag, who died on December 28, 2004, from leukemia, at the age of seventy-one, after a multi-decade battle against cancer. Although sad to hear of the great suffering endured by this creative writer, I did breathe a little sigh of relief and recognition when I discovered that, at the time of her …
The Handshake
The Handshake Brett Kahr Being of Austrian-Jewish extraction, I grew up in a family in which everyone hugs and kisses when we meet. Indeed, in my private life, I would regard myself as a rather physically affectionate person. But in the consulting room, during my working day, I adopt a very different stance. Although I endeavor to be at ease within my body during analytic sessions, I do maintain a certain physical distance from my patients, and I…
Filming Sexual Fantasies
Filming Sexual Fantasies I am standing in the center of London's Millennium Bridge, on a blisteringly cold Tuesday morning in April, with St. Paul's Cathedral looming behind me and a veritable flotilla of noisy tugboats tooting below. Overhead, a bevy of jets continues to whoosh by, whipping up the wind; and with no overcoat to protect me, I have begun to freeze. Hundreds of mid-morning commuters rush past in both directions, wondering why I rema…
On Practicing Therapy at 1
On Practicing Therapy at 1:45 A.M. In July of 2004, I became the Resident Psychotherapist for B.B.C. Radio 2, the most popular radio station in Great Britain, which attracts approximately 15,000,000 listeners weekly from all parts of the British Isles. Some four months earlier, Lesley Douglas, the forward-thinking and visionary new Controller of Radio 2, had invited me for a breakfast meeting atop St. George's Hotel on Langham Place, near her off…
How to Make a Forty-Seven Minute Television Program in Only Three Years
On Patients Who Remove Their Clothing in Sessions
F. Robert Rodman, 1934-2004
Exhibitionism
Dr Paul Weston and the bloodstained couch
Dr Paul Weston has blood on his couch & quite literally. In the midst of a marital psychotherapy session with a warring couple, the pregnant wife miscarries her foetus and leaves a mark on Dr Westo
Robert Boyle
On 31 May 1936 Professor Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, wrote a letter to the Austrian littérateur Arnold Zweig, warning him about the dangers of undertaking biographical research. Freud intoned that ‘anyone turning biographer commits himself to lies, to concealment, to hypocrisy, to flattery, and even to hiding his own lack of understanding, for biographical truth is not to be had, and even if it were it couldn't be used’. As a ps…
Exhibitionism
F. Robert Rodman, 1934-2004
On Practicing Therapy at 1
On Practicing Therapy at 1:45 A.M. In July of 2004, I became the Resident Psychotherapist for B.B.C. Radio 2, the most popular radio station in Great Britain, which attracts approximately 15,000,000 listeners weekly from all parts of the British Isles. Some four months earlier, Lesley Douglas, the forward-thinking and visionary new Controller of Radio 2, had invited me for a breakfast meeting atop St. George's Hotel on Langham Place, near her off…
How to Make a Forty-Seven Minute Television Program in Only Three Years
On Patients Who Remove Their Clothing in Sessions
How to Make 120,000 People Happy in Just Ten Weeks
How to Make 120,000 People Happy in Just Ten Weeks Brett Kahr I am seated in a swish leather banquette, discreetly tucked away in the alcove of a bustling, sun-streaked restaurant in Waterloo, South London, just a stone's throw from the Old Vic Theatre, lunching with a very attractive, dynamic Welshwoman called Patricia Llewellyn—"Pat" to her friends—one of Great Britain's most enterprising independent television producers. I have known Pat for s…
I Suffer from Karnacitis
I Suffer from Karnacitis Brett Kahr A year or so ago, I read an obituary in The New York Times of the American author, intellectual, and critic, Susan Sontag, who died on December 28, 2004, from leukemia, at the age of seventy-one, after a multi-decade battle against cancer. Although sad to hear of the great suffering endured by this creative writer, I did breathe a little sigh of relief and recognition when I discovered that, at the time of her …
The Handshake
The Handshake Brett Kahr Being of Austrian-Jewish extraction, I grew up in a family in which everyone hugs and kisses when we meet. Indeed, in my private life, I would regard myself as a rather physically affectionate person. But in the consulting room, during my working day, I adopt a very different stance. Although I endeavor to be at ease within my body during analytic sessions, I do maintain a certain physical distance from my patients, and I…
Filming Sexual Fantasies
Filming Sexual Fantasies I am standing in the center of London's Millennium Bridge, on a blisteringly cold Tuesday morning in April, with St. Paul's Cathedral looming behind me and a veritable flotilla of noisy tugboats tooting below. Overhead, a bevy of jets continues to whoosh by, whipping up the wind; and with no overcoat to protect me, I have begun to freeze. Hundreds of mid-morning commuters rush past in both directions, wondering why I rema…
Musings of a Musicophiliac
Musings of a Musicophiliac Brett Kahr Although Sigmund Freud never played a musical instrument and, by all accounts, did not particularly relish musical performances, the vast majority of mental health professionals whom I know both professionally and socially cherish musical experience deeply. In one clinical organization to which I belong, we boast an eminent classical composer who has written pieces for the British royal family, but who now pr…
The Ten-Minute Gap
The Ten-Minute Gap Brett Kahr Every morning, I unlock the door to my consulting room at 6:45 a.m. I do so for several reasons. First of all, I need to ensure that I arrive well before my first patient, whose sessions begin at 7:00 a.m. Additionally, I must switch on the lights, turn on the heating on winter days, and place two large tissues over the pillow on the couch so that each patient will have a hygienic coverlet on which to rest the head. …
A Night at the Opera
A Night at the Opera:The Freudians at Covent Garden Brett Kahr Although Great Britain boasts approximately eight thousand psychotherapists registered with either the British Psychoanalytic Council or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy—the two principal professional bodies for psychotherapists in this country—we have, at present, only thirty-five fully accredited marital psychotherapists, or, as we have recently become known, "couple psy…
Tissues
Tissues Brett Kahr Every year, I spend a comparatively large amount of money on tissues. No doubt many householders purchase a few boxes of tissues from time to time, but I do so perhaps more regularly than most. I suspect that the young woman who operates the cash register at Boots the Chemist on Hampstead High Street must find me a bit dotty. Each month, I come into the shop and instead of purchasing shampoo, nail clippers, shaving foam, or asp…
On Painting the Consulting Room
Defending Lady Macbeth
Defending Lady Macbeth:Testimony of an Expert Witness Brett Kahr The telephone rang. "Brett, would you be free next Sunday night to be an expert witness in the 'Lady Macbeth' murder trial at the Royal Courts of Justice? I'm defending her." "Excuse me?" "It's an event for charity. The Criminal Bar Association . . . to raise money for young barristers. It will be great fun." The caller did not identify herself. She did not have to. I recognized the…
Four Unknown Freud Anecdotes
Four Unknown Freud Anecdotes Brett Kahr "In psychoanalysis details are often of supreme importance for conveying understanding and conviction." —J. C. Flügel, "Psychoanalysis: Its Status and Promise" (1930) The British journal Psychoanalysis and History recently published a brief communication written by the late Dr. Lydia Marinelli (2009), the distinguished Austrian Freud scholar, about the actual tweed cap that Sigmund Freud wore during his fli…
Dr Paul Weston and the bloodstained couch
Dr Paul Weston has blood on his couch & quite literally. In the midst of a marital psychotherapy session with a warring couple, the pregnant wife miscarries her foetus and leaves a mark on Dr Westo
"Winnicott's " Anni Horribiles
Donald Winnicott's 1949 paper "Hate in the Counter-transference" has come to occupy an important place in the psychoanalytic literature, both as a feisty critique of mid-twentieth-century biological psychiatry and as a brave statement about the burdens of working psychotherapeutically with very ill patients. Hitherto, scholars have devoted little attention to this classic work, and have not explored the biographical and cultural contexts in which…
Baseball Caps, Overcoats, Orange Suits, and Neckties
Baseball Caps, Overcoats, Orange Suits, and Neckties:On Patients and Their Clothing Brett Kahr I should like to begin with a cautionary tale. Some years ago, a very frightened and suspicious gentleman came to see me for a consultation. Mr. W. told me immediately that he had already tried to engage with a psychotherapist once before, but that he found my colleague to be reprehensible. I inquired delicately as to the nature of his discontent, and h…
The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf Brett Kahr Recently, I visited the new home of two dear old friends. Both lawyers, they had moved from a large house on the outskirts of London into a reasonably small flat in the center of town. In order to accommodate their more modest spatial circumstances, my friends had done a “cull” of their personal library. Apparently, they had no choice. But, I wondered, how could they possibly decide which books would be executed. As the h…
Tea with Winnicott
New Horizons in Forensic Psychotherapy
Coffee with Freud
Bombs in the Consulting Room
Psychology (18 works) · Psychoanalysis (16 works) · Art (12 works) · History (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Art history (7 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Political science (5 works)