ABSTRACT
This chapter provides setting in psychotherapy or counselling. The setting is made up by the rules that help to build a relational environment that is technically suitable for the therapeutic relationship. The relational environment is constituted of both the setting and the administrative, ethical, professional, relational agreements which define the relationship between the two people who meet for a session. The environment where psychotherapy takes place must have a silent, reserved, welcoming space designed exclusively for the interview or for the group, if treatment requires it. Precise timing and duration of sessions, usually between forty-five and fifty minutes, define the time of the professional performance for a psychotherapy interview. It is necessary to suggest an administrative contract, that is, a bilateral commitment in which the practitioner explains her fee, payment mode, and rules in case the patient skips the appointment. Transactional analysis method is intrinsically contractual and is contractual in psychotherapy as well.
