ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic conception of how to organize the therapeutic relationship has toggled between two different nominations—the “setting” and the “frame,” which are usually taken to be fundamentally the same. This chapter explores the idea that these two concepts might actually refer to different aspects of the establishment and maintenance of the analytic relationship. The setting, as distinguished from the frame, implies the atmosphere that defines the potential transformative effect of the treatment. Sigmund Freud initiated several ideas that established the concept of the psychoanalytic setting, which he referred to as “technical rules”. Melanie Klein’s setting is a space of separateness and therefore weaning, where the attempts to merge with the primary object are analyzed so that the patient can learn to be separate and to develop his or her own mind. While Klein was expanding Freud’s classical view of the setting and the frame, Winnicott offered an alternative perspective.
