ABSTRACT
The analytical process is a ‘natural product’ of the structure of the mind. The method and the model of the mind are interdependent, and gradually evolve to become more sophisticated, in response to clinical observation. Beauty accrues not only to the mind but also to the method by which its workings become manifest and which has its own ‘aesthetic’. Donald Meltzer’s final definition of psychoanalysis was ‘a conversation between internal objects’. It is the psychoanalytic setting that enables transference processes to find expression, and this has become refined over the years in terms of recognising the need to avoid social relations with the patient and other personal features that interfere with transference. Modulation is a feature of the setting, in Meltzer’s special usage. Its prime aim is not to ease anxiety but to seek truth, a joint venture of the transference – communication rather than action.
