The Analyst's Consulting Room

To the Editor:

In this Journal, Roazen (1995) recently raised an issue deserving more than in passim attention, particularly in training institutes. He wrote:

In a patient's eagerness to overcome emotional problems, the analyst's predilections are bound to loom enormously large. The impact an analyst has on a patient goes far beyond any spoken words or communicated interpretations. The nature of the consulting room, the taste of the decorations, as well as the meaning that certain artifacts of the analyst's suggest, are often overlooked as an aspect of the therapeutic process. For an analyst to have an office full of prized possessions, or books, is not any kind of professional indiscretion. On the contrary, the desiccated kinds of consulting rooms that one is apt to encounter in the New World, in contrast to what would be the case on the continent today, for example, say something about what is wrong with the state of our own culture. (p. 46)

Others have voiced similar concerns in the recent past. For instance, Viederman (1991) stressed, “Deviation from anonymity begins with the physical appearance and surround of the analyst, highly reflective of his world and tastes” (p. 464). More specifically, Meissner (1992) underscored, “The realities of the location of the analyst's office, the physical surroundings, the furniture and decorations in the room, the geographic location itself, and even how the analyst dresses, affect the analytic relationship and influence how the patient experiences the person of the analyst” (p. 1968). Nevertheless, Roazen's emphasis on “desiccated consulting rooms” may serve to make this part of the issue even clearer. “Desiccate,” as defined by Webster's , is: “to dry up,” “to dehydrate,” “to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality” (p. 343)—clearly, the antithesis of a healthy treatment setting. How do “desiccated” offices impact the different stages of treatment?

In different countries, colleagues and patients have refused to work with an