Fascinating Photos of Manhattan Psychotherapists’ Chairs

By Judy Berman

July 13, 2012

Thanks to filmmakers like Woody Allen and writers like Janet Malcolm, the Manhattan psychoanalyst has become an archetype — urbane, inquisitive, eclectic, sometimes pseudo-intellectual. So, who wouldn’t want to take a peek inside the offices of these storied mental health practitioners? Photographer Saul Robbins satisfies this curiosity in Initial Intake, which we discovered via Feature Shoot, a series of photos showcasing psychotherapy professionals’ chairs in offices from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village to Central Park West.

“Viewers are encouraged to consider the inherent personality in each of these environments, and the place of power being held, quite literally, across from them, on a regular basis. I am particularly interested in the existence of a dyadic relationship between practitioner and client, one not always considered in traditional modalities of treatment,” writes Robbins, who has psychotherapists in his immediate family and was inspired to embark upon the project after a thought-provoking therapeutic experience of his own. Click through for some of our favorite images from Initial Intake (which, it must be said, includes a whole lot of covet-worthy chairs) and visit Robbins’ website to see the entire series.