The analyst's space

The space the analyst creates in his consulting room gives expression to the most primitive elements in his personality. It does this despite, and even by means of, the professional conventions it incorporates. This phenomenon is first apparent in Freud's office where the space of the psychoanalytic situation originated. Here the room itself--filled with the antiquities he collected so passionately--met important narcissistic/symbiotic needs. In this sense it encodes a very early, unanalyzed level of relationship with his mother. It is suggested here that these phenomena, visible in Freud's office, are continuing elements of the analytic frame. Because of the character of the analyst and the structure of the relationship, the room becomes a mise-en-scène in which the narcissistic/symbiotic layers of both participants' characters are played out. Failing to recognize this may lead the analyst to treat seemingly regressive behavior as resistance and to intervene at developmental levels the patients has not achieved. Indeed, such "regressions" can only be understood as products of the situation itself. Phenomenologically, the analyst has become the corner in which he took refuge as a child; the corner to which the patient now comes for sanctuary. Because this connection is unconscious it cannot be called an alliance. Rather, it is a fortuitous interlocking that--like mother-child symbiosis--constitutes a matrix for new growth.