PSYCHOANALYSIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC FRAM E

I propose to call the Psycho-analytic situation the sum total of pheno mena involved in the therapeutic relationship between the analyst and the patient. This situation includes phenomena which make up a process and which is studied, analysed and interpreted; but it also includes a frame, that is to say ''a non-process'' in the sense that it represe nts the constants, within whose limits the process occurs. The relatio nship between them is studied and the frame is explained as the set of constants within whose limits the process takes place (variables). Th e basic aim is to study, not the breaking of the frame, but its psycho -analytic meaning when ''ideally normal'' conditions are maintained. T hus, the frame is studied as an instituion within whose limits phenome na occur which are called ''behaviours''. In this sense. the frame is ''dumb'' but not non-existent. It makes up the non-ego of the patient, according to which the ego shapes itself. This non-ego is the ''ghost world'' of the patient, that lies in the frame and represents a ''met a-behaviour''. The role of the frame is illustrated with some clinical examples which reveal the placement in the frame of the patient's mos t primitive ''family institution''. It is thus the perfect repetition compulsion, which brings up the primitive undifferentiation of the fir st stages of the organization of personality. The frame as an institut ion is the receiver of the psychotic part of the personality, i.e. of the undifferentiated and non-solved part of the primitive symbiotic li nks. The psycho-analytic meaning of the frame defined in this way is t hen examined, as well as the relevance of these considerations for cli nical work and technique.