In classical psychoanalysis, as pioneered by Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the patient reclines on a couch, while the therapist sits behind them, and so cannot be seen directly by the client.
Freud advocated that the clinical encounter is not supposed to be ‘face-to-face’. Was this an early attempt at 'Social Distancing'?
Sigmund Freud did, after all, live through the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 - 1920. In fact, meeting in a consulting room, but then deploying a furniture arrangement which on purpose ‘hides’ the psychoanalyst from the patient, according to Freud, generates powerful psychological processes.
Read more on psychologytoday.com