An Architect's View of Introspective Space The Analytic Vessel

The room is his space, not mine. It has his things in it and I look at it almost every day. After a while they start to become mine, too, but not in the same way they are his. I don't know their history and I don't know his, but I start to overlay mine onto them. The primitive, handmade sculptures connect me to him, to those who made them, to other places around the world, outside and beyond myself, while I look deeply inside. They are his things, but they belong to all of us; our pasts, our present, and the future somehow are coalesced in this room. If the natural light is diffused, the room has a dreamy quality. If it is bright, I'm less in touch with my feelings and more aware of what I'm thinking. The shadows cast by the blinds are beautiful. The stillness of the room is interrupted by this reminder of our ancient attachment to the universal and fundamental qualities of the earth and our humanness in it. It is a simple reminder, too, of the passing of time. The blanket on the couch is soft, but durable, and has an open weave; obviously hand woven, it is reassuring. It was designed to protect the couch, but because I touch it, I am holding the hand of the weaver. The window lets me escape when I am resistant to the work. The visual relief quells anxiety borne of the intimacy and closeness of the analyst. The room is reassuring and consistent when I need it to be and it is an open box of treasures stimulating memories and feelings.

If we believe the essence and objective of psychoanalytic work is personal transformation, then the exchange, and over time the relationship, between analyst and analysand is the milieu by which this transformation takes place. This personal exchange is psychologically charged, as is the site of the exchange. Two unique individuals meet in a specific location, the analytic setting. This special room