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The "[[frame ]] of [[psychoanalytic ]] [[treatment]]" refers to the [[formal ]] and contractual means necessary for establishing the [[situation ]] that characterizes [[psychoanalysis ]] compared to [[other ]] forms of [[psychotherapy]]. Although the frame has been at the heart of psychoanalytic [[practice ]] ever since its origins, considerations of its [[structure ]] and function are more [[recent]], dating from the Second [[World ]] War. One of the first to investigate this frame was José Bleger in an article entitled "Psychoanalysis of the Psychoanalytic Frame" (Bleger, 1967).

This frame was gradually developed by [[Freud ]] for what were often circumstantial or personal reasons, but he eventually developed a set of uniform recommendations consistent with the [[theoretical ]] and [[practical ]] modalities of treatment. As early as 1904 he described his "psychotherapeutic method": "Without exerting any other kind of influence, he invites [[them ]] to lie down in a comfortable attitude on a sofa, while he himself sits on a [[chair ]] behind them [[outside ]] their field of [[vision]]. He does not even ask them to close their eyes, and avoids [[touching ]] them in any way, as well as any other procedure which might be reminiscent of [[hypnosis]]. The [[session ]] thus proceeds like a conversation between two [[people ]] equally awake, but one of whom is spared every muscular exertion and every distracting sensory impression which might divert his attention from his own [[mental ]] [[activity]]" (1904a, p. 250). Nine years later he provided additional details such as frequency and duration of the sessions and method of payment—parameters that were as important for proper treatment as the mutual obligations of free [[association ]] or the [[prohibition ]] to act out on the part of the [[analysand ]] and free-[[floating ]] attention or the rule of [[abstinence ]] on the part of the [[analyst ]] (1913c).

The restrictions imposed by the treatment setting apply to both parties, even if its contractual [[nature ]] is often overlooked in [[order ]] to emphasize the pseudo-[[power ]] attributed to the [[psychoanalyst ]] by virtue of the [[patient]]'s [[masochism]]. The frame appears to function as the [[representative ]] of the [[incest ]] prohibition in the [[analytic ]] situation, a prohibition that in fact favors expression and [[analysis]]. The frame can be considered an "excluded middle" that hovers over the protagonists during the session, reminding them that every "dualistic" [[relationship ]] is [[illusory]], even during moments of the most intense [[regression]].

Opinions vary regarding these [[interpretations ]] since the elements that characterize the frame are rich with [[symbolization]]. José Bleger (1967) distinguishes the frame within the psychoanalytic situation as a "non-[[process]]" consisting of "constants within whose bounds the process takes [[place]]" (p. 511), and he locates its origin in the "most [[primitive ]] fusion with the [[mother]]'s [[body]]" (p. 518). He subdivides the frame into two elements: the frame proposed by the analyst and accepted by the patient, and the frame formed by projections of the patient's most primitive symbiotic [[associations]]. It is with this last point that the [[concepts ]] of "container-contained," the analyst's alpha function (Wilfred Bion), and Donald [[Winnicott]]'s "setting" are associated. For Winnicott, the analyst "expresses" his [[love ]] for the patient by his reflected interest and his [[hatred ]] by his observance of the rites of payment and scheduling (Winnicott, 1958). According to Jean-Luc Donnet, "the frame is both protection and [[threat]], just as its symbolization is [[forced ]] and liberating" (1973). [[Jean Laplanche]], with his [[image ]] of the psychoanalyst's "tub," describes a "[[double]]-wall setting" wherein the outside wall, "purely legalistic and formal" but contractual, is necessary to preserve the inner wall, which is [[subject ]] to the uncertainties of the [[analytic process ]] and is needed for [[sexual ]] issues and the [[transference ]] [[neurosis ]] to [[manifest ]] themselves (Laplanche, 1987).

The arrangement of the frame for [[psychotic ]] [[patients ]] or as a function of what [[Lacan ]] and his students refer to as the [[temporal ]] scansion of the session introduces the question of its relationship with the establishment and ongoing [[coherence ]] of a psychoanalytic process. There are a [[number ]] of parameters involved and each of them raises the question of its [[role ]] and importance in managing the situation: the number and duration of sessions (four sessions of fifty minutes at a minimum according to [[official ]] American guidelines, [[three ]] of forty-five minutes for [[French ]] members of the [[International Psychoanalytic Association]], shorter for [[others]], longer for Freud), distribution throughout the week (frequent sessions, sometimes several a day for patients who live far away), payment (cash or check), accepting [[third]]-party payment or not, problems associated with days off, with vacations, with changes to the [[ritual ]] (moving, for example), the intrusion of the telephone, contact during, or outside, the session (Sándor Ferenczi's "[[active ]] [[technique]]" or "mutual analysis," Michael [[Balint]]'s or [[Donald Winnicott]]'s [[physical ]] holding), and so on.

Rigid attitudes on one side, [[transgressive ]] relativism on the other, reference to the paternal prohibition against incest versus a conception of the frame as a womb implying a [[total ]] [[return ]] to a [[primal ]] [[state]], a setting for hypnosis or a condition for [[working]]-through—the [[conditions ]] associated with the unique nature of psychoanalytic treatment possess a non-[[alienating ]] [[value ]] only because they are based on a contract that circumscribes them and that can at any [[moment ]] be torn up by either of its cosignatories.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1904a). Freud's [[psycho]]-analytic procedure. SE, 7: 247-254.

# Laplanche, Jean. (1989). New foundations for psychoanalysis (David Macey, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. (Original [[work ]] published in 1987)# Winnicott, Donald W. (1958). Collected papers: Through paediatrics to psycho-analysis. [[London]]: Tavistock Publications.