ABSTRACT

The setting is the formal arrangement which makes it possible to set up the kind of working atmosphere that is conducive to the psychoanalytic venture. 'Setting' is a post-Freudian term. Freud simply put forward some ideas for improving the efficacy of psychoanalytic work. The internal setting is already implicit in the fundamental rules of free association, evenly suspended attention, and abstinence which were set out very early in Freud's work. As a psychoanalytic attitude, evenly suspended attention switches on the 'invisible radar' of the internal setting. Open and relaxed listening captures the productions of the unconscious and temporarily suspends ideology and principles which prevent listening. The essence of psychoanalysis is what takes place in the internal setting, in the field of internal worlds that get to know each other, that interpenetrate each other, and of which one—that of the analyst—brings on to the terrain of language the partly ineffable processes of representations, affects and silences.