The changeable permanence of the psychoanalytic setting

SETTING IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

Abstract

The article discusses the classical and quantum approach to the study of the setting in psychoanalysis. The concept of a microsetting describing what happens at the boundaries of a psychoanalytic session is introduced. The author explores the permanently existing temporal and spatial turbulence within the microsetting, in particular the continuous change in the physical distance between the patient and the analyst. The process of transition from one microsetting to another at the end of a session with one patient and the beginning with the next is considered.

The "double meaning" of the psychoanalytic setting is described, its classical and quantum essence consists of imminently conflicting and causing turbulence in the microsetting, but completely inseparable components of the psychoanalytic setting that ensure the development of the psychoanalytic process. In the psychoanalytic process, the setting inevitably becomes a quantum variable otherness, but at the same time remains classical and persistant, the most important constant of analysis. The author argues that psychoanalysis can take place only if, during the psychoanalytic process, the setting loses for the analyst its classical unchanging essence and acquires a living and conflictual "double meaning skin".

The article analyzes the analyst's internal setting, based on the post-oedipal acceptance of the primal scene, which allows the analyst to track changes in the microsetting. The latter contributes to the maintenance and retention of the external setting of the psychoanalytic process. The preservation of the post-oedipal analytical position is critical, since the problem of retention and maintaining the setting cannot be solved without working through simultaneously existing paternal and maternal components of intertransference.