Now, tell me what you see
New Zealand Listener|July 1-7 2023
Inkblots have an enduring fascination as a psychoanalysis tool, especially when out drinking in Prague
Marc Wilson
Now, tell me what you see

Prague has palaces, the Charles Bridge, and the Celestial Clock, but if you are a particularly nerdy (and boozy) tourist, you can make a reservation at the Anonymous Shrink's Office.

The entrance isn't immediately obvious unless you know what you're looking for. A sign outside a bourbon bar looks like an inkblot of a face.

Inside, if you press the red button next to a photo of a masked person, part of a brick wall will swing open and you'll be directed to a private cocktail bar where you select your drinks, not from a menu, but by choosing from a selection of ambiguous pictures. Let your unconscious decide...

As the name suggests, this bar is themed around psychoanalysis - the branch of mental inquiry introduced and popularised by Sigmund Freud in the 1890s and early 1900s.

To recap, Freud reckoned that a lot of our here-and-now behaviour and mental distress reflect what's bubbling away in our unconscious.

Because our unconscious is, well, unconscious, he developed a certain set of tools to get behind the veil and access what we're not conscious of: word association, dream interpretation and suchlike.

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