ABSTRACT
Knowledge of Jose Bleger’s work in the English-speaking world was based almost exclusively on his paper on the psychoanalytic setting. Bleger considers the psychoanalytic setting from a number of different viewpoints at the same time. He begins by defining the psychoanalytic situation as comprised of an analytic process and what he calls a ‘non-process’. It is important to note that for Bleger, ‘undifferentiation’ is not simply the absence of differentiation; it implies a certain structure and organisation. The psychoanalytic setting can be regarded as a certain kind of institution. The implications for psychoanalytic technique, then, are that at some point the setting itself has to be analysed, and the analyst–patient relationship has to be ‘de-symbiotised’, but he observes that this will meet strong resistance because the symbiosis is something which has never before been recognised by the patient.
