The Analytic Moment Doesn't Fit Analytic “Technique”: Commentary on Tony Bass's “When the Frame Doesn't Fit the Picture”

Abstract

Tony Bass in his groundbreaking contribution to the analytic literature argues cogently that the frame remains an essential reference point throughout any psychoanalysis, a statement about which he and I are in agreement. He also argues that for a frame to be therapeutically useful it must be flexible enough to allow negotiation of enactments and their working through in an intersubjective field, another point about which we are in complete accord. He and I each hold a self-state perspective that informs and enriches our clinical work. Where we diverge slightly is in how this perspective shapes the way we think about the nature of the “frame” as it applies to the dissociated self-states of patient and analyst that emerge and engage each other subsymbolically as an ongoing aspect of the work, often in quite bewildering and sometimes confounding ways. This paper speaks to a number of issues that I hope will bring into relief some of the points of contrast that do exist, while underlining the core commonality in our thinking and clinical sensibility that unites us. This paper expands my discussion of Tony Bass's January 13, 2007 presentation at “Reframing the Frame: Creativity and Discipline in Relational Psychoanalysis,” a conference sponsored by the Stephen A. Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis held at The New School for Social Research, New York City. Dr. Bass's paper can be found in Psychoanalytic Dialogues (2007), Vol. 17, No. 1.