This article describes the complementarity of the setting and the psychoanalytic process from the angle of organizational principles common to life systems as a whole. Drawing on the theory of autopoietic systems, situated at the junction of biology, the cognitive sciences, sociology and the philosophy of mind, we show how the specificity of the psychoanalytic setting allows for the emergence of an operational closure that gives the psychoanalytic process its identity and autonomy. The latter may thus be said to be organized in a similar manner to the psychical apparatus and its functioning. The article concludes by exploring the impact of the autopoietic perspective on the ethics and the method of the clinician in his practice.