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The term “analytic setting” refers to the physical framework and the routine procedures of psychoanalytic practice which form an integral part of the process of being psychoanalyzed. Although it is true that one or another of these elements may be altered without making psychoanalysis impossible, it is also true that the analytic setting does influence the various processes which do occur in psychoanalytic treatment. For example, we know that transference reactions take place spontaneously in neurotic human beings who are not in psychoanalytic therapy. Yet we also know that the analytic setting does facilitate and maximize the appearance of all the different transference reactions.
Although Freud carefully described how he went about establishing the various routines and procedures with his new patients, he did not conceptualize what he expected them to contribute (Freud, 1912b, 1913b). That he had had some expectations in this regard can be seen in his paper on transference love, where he mentioned that the patient's falling in love is “induced” and “provoked” by the analytic situation (Freud, 1915a, pp. 160-161, 168).
Until relatively recently, the psychoanalytic literature stressed the overwhelming importance of the patient's past history and the analyst's attitude of relative neutrality, incognito, and passivity as the factors determining the course of the transference reactions.
Although this is still essentially valid, we do recognize today that certain elements in the analytic setting and procedures may promote or hinder these developments. The papers of Macalpine, (1950) Greenacre (1954), Lewin (1955), Spitz (1956b), and Stone (1961) have been of particular value in illuminating the significance of the analytic setting for the evolution of the various transference reactions.
In keeping with earlier formulations in regard to the patient's relationship to the analyst, we will study the analytic setting from the point of view of the elements that promote the tr