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The moment when an analysand first walks into an analyst's consultant room, boundary lines are drawn between them. An assymetrical balance of power exists from the very beginning; the psychoanalytic situation is an extraordinary social formation where one of the parties has a particular kind of power to influence the other. This, however, is not what makes it specific; instead, psychoanalysis is distinguished by its frame (Künstlicher, 1996).
The infant gets to know and learns to deal with the world through its body, its skin and its senses. A foundation is laid for what will become the child's ego with a mind and a language of its own. It is a development of the psyche, contingent on the impact of the prohibition on touching (Anzieu 1989). Thus, we are forced to cope with frustration from the very beginning of our lives. Freud's “discovery” evolved from his realization that psychic work could begin when enactment was checked in order to allow an experience of frustration, and to necessitate verbal expression. This train of thought is the starting point for the creation of the psychoanalytic frame which symbolizes the boundary that forces us to reflect, and put painful experiences and emotions into words.