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there is not one single way of approaching this topic in the region. There is an ongoing debate on the need to adapt psychoanalytic technique to contemporary society. Etchegoyen (1986) advocates a firm yet flexible setting that comprises a set of variables that are established in order to provide a stable framework that will enable the unfolding of the analytic process. Etchegoyen claims that the setting represents the reality that is present in the analytic situation, and understands this reality as the social environment around us. He believes that the process inspires the setting but should not determine it. Among Brazilian contributors to the notion of setting, Fabio Hermann (1991) is an important thinker who also views it as a frame . Analysts establish it in their clinical practice to avoid losing their method over the course of the analytic process. This frame acts as a fence facing outwards. It does not shelter the analysis from the invasion of the external world; this is an impossible task, for the outside world is already present in the consulting room with the analyst and the patient. Yet it does protect the analytic couple from a routinized way of thinking. The crux of Hermann’s theory is the notion of the breakdown of the field, which may be understood as a moment in an analysis when the analysand is able to perceive a self- representation that had been prevented from emerging. The rupture of the existing field of communication, according to this author, constitutes the hallmark of the analytic process. It is inside the fence of the setting that analysands will become aware of a different perception of themselves. Eizirik, Correa, Nogueira et al. (2000), advanced the idea that the current social context bears specific features and that its repercussions on the analytic setting must be respected. They claim that analytic training plays a key role in the constitution of the analytic identity, which must include the analyst’s attitude of preserving the setting – of being its custodian, in a way. They share Green’s view on its function; the setting plays the role of the third that must be explicitly or implicitly present in any human relationship so as to prevent it from becoming psychotic. Furthermore, they emphasize the significance of the notion of internal setting . The latter will enable analysts to manage the preservation of the setting in the current social context. Marcio de Freitas Giovannetti (2006), following Derrida, refers to present-day analysts’ hospitality. This approach represents a fairly topical perspective within the psychoanalytic debate in Latin America. Freitas Giovannetti upholds the idea that in contemporary clinical practice what is needed is a feasible rather than a traditional setting. In today’s world, where the idea of speed and of the acceleration of time has replaced the notion of permanence, if the classical setting is introduced to patients, there is the risk of preventing any form of analysis from developing. For this author, one of primary roles for the analyst is the gradual establishment of a feasible setting so that the analysis can progress. Analysts must strive to transform virtual, borderless space into a place – a place of real rather than virtual existence.
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