Freud's Last Session

"I had a session with Freud."

So says a button I received upon my exit from a wonderful off-Broadway performance of Freud's Last Session, a show I recommend especially to fellow psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists. Rare is the opportunity to witness such a brilliantly imagined enactment--here Freud and C.S. Lewis spar on the question of the existence of God using only intellect and philosophy as weapons.

I openly confess to rooting for Freud, an intellectual hero, and luxuriating in the logic of his arguments. But equally enjoyable was pondering a few unanswerable questions posited by Lewis, stopping Freud in his tracks. At these moments it seemed as if a window opened up for fundamental questions of existence to rush through. This led to my own thinking about why, in general in the universe, there is something rather than nothing. To me this stimulation alone was worth more than the price of tickets.

The play takes place at the end of Freud's life, during WWII, in his London study as he grapples with worsening oral cancer. Mark St. Germain's play is an imagined encounter suggested by a book The Question of God by Dr. Armand M. Nicoli, Jr., and is superbly performed by Martin Rayner and Mark H. Dold and directed by Tyler Marchant. Freud's Last Session is playing at New World Stages in Manhattan on W50th St. between 8th and 9th Aves.

--

In other news, my book Art Healing: Visual Art for Emotional Insight and Well-Being was declared an award-winner in the Art category of The USA "Best Books 2011" Awards, sponsored by USA Book News. Copies are available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.