Psychoanalysis is not just about what happens in the room, it is also about the structure that holds it all together. Dr. Furlong will present her new book, Putting the Psychoanalytic Frame to Work: Why it Matters, in which she reviews her experience with aspects of the framework in psychoanalytically oriented work where she, colleagues, and supervisees have struggled and stumbled. In so doing, she rethinks one of the traditional approaches to the analytic frame, arguing that disruptions—missed sessions, consent complexities, and third-party demands—are not necessarily obstacles but can be essential moments for deepening therapeutic insight.

The book argues for a benevolent expectation of ‘trouble’ as an inherent part of the therapeutic couple getting to know each other more deeply, and as an aspect which distinguishes the psychoanalytic frame from that usually taught by professional regulatory bodies. Furlong proposes that the analyst or psychoanalytic therapist welcomes framework glitches as opportunities to ‘put the framework to work’ rather than simply dis-posing of them as acting out or error. In so doing, the book invites clinicians to critically examine different theoretical approaches to the framework and its inevitable breaches.

A why-to rather than a how-to book, Putting the Psychoanalytic Frame to Work aims to invigorate the practice of analysts everywhere—both seasoned and in training.

Putting the Psychoanalytic Frame to Work: Why it Matters – 1st Edition
Available for pre-order on August 8, 2025.
Buy on Routledge

Bibliography:

• Bass, A. (2007a). When the frame doesn’t fit the picture. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 17:1–27.
• Bazzano, L. A., Durant, J., & Brantley, P. R. (2021). A Modern History of Informed Consent and the Role of Key Information. Ochsner Journal, 21(1), 81–85. https://doi.org/10.31486/toj.19.0105
• Bleger J. (1967). Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic frame. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 48(4): 511-519
• Bonovitz, C. (2021a). The Waiting Room as an Extension of the Treatment: Transference and Countertransference across the Consulting and Waiting Rooms. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 31:50-62.
• Buckner, F, and M Firestone. (2000). “Where the public peril begins”. 25 years after Tarasoff. Journal of Legal Medicine vol. 21,2 : 187-222. doi:10.1080/01947640050074698
• Cooper, S. H. (2019). A theory of the setting: The transformation of un-represented experience and play. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:1439-1454
• Da Silva, Guy. (2003). Confidentiality in psychoanalysis: A private space for creative thinking and the work of transformation. In Confidentiality: Ethical Perspectives and Clinical Dilemmas. Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press, 151-165.
• Donnet, Jean-Luc. (2001). From the fundamental rule to the analysing situation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. (2001) 82, 129-140. Trans Andrew Weller.
• Ehrlich, Theodorou Lena. (2020). Psychoanalysis from the Inside Out: Developing and Sustaining an Analytic Identity and Practice. Routledge.
• Ferro, A. (2002). In the Analyst’s Consulting Room. Translated by P. Slot-kin. Hove, UK: Routledge, 2021.
• Ferro, A. (2012). Swimming one’s way up to the fundamental rule. In Seulin, Christian; Saragnano, Gennaro, Editors. On Freud’s On Beginning the Treatment. Taylor & Francis. 2018.
• Goldberg, Peter. (2018). Reconfiguring the frame as a dynamic structure. In I. Tylim and A. Harris (Edits), Reconsidering the Movable Frame in Psychoanalysis. Taylor & Francis, 92-110.
• Grier, F. (2023). Anonymisation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 2023 Dec;104(6):981-985. doi: 10.1080/00207578.2023.2286763.
• Kite, J. V. (2016). The Fundamental Ethical Ambiguity of the Analyst as Person. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 64:1153-1171.
• Letarte, Paulette. (2018). Entendre la folie. Presses Universitaires de France.
• Marleau, Isabelle. (2020a). Le consentement libre et éclairé: réflexions et modèles pour les cliniciens. Psychologie Québec, 37, mars. https://www.ordrepsy.qc.ca/-/le-consentement-libre-et-eclaire-reflexions-et-modeles-pour-les-cliniciens
• Ogden, Thomas. (2018). How I talk with my patients. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, LXXXVII, pp 399-413. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00332828.2018.1495513
• Reith, B. Lagerlöf, Sven, Crick, Penelope, Møller, Mette, and Skale, Elizabeth. (Eds) (2012). Initiating Psychoanalysis: Perspectives. The New Library of Psychoanalysis Teaching Series, London: Routledge.
• Robertson, B. M. (2013). The Analyst’s Pain: an Aspect of Clinical Writing and Publication. IPAC panel Prague 2013. 48th IPA Congress: Facing The Pain—Prague 2013.
• Schachter, Joan, Tabakin, Jon, Blucher, Thais and Jemstedt, Arne. 2024. The Psychoanalytic Setting. IPA website, IPA Inter-regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, pp 722-741.  https:onlineflippingbook.com/view/544664
• Stern, Donnel B. (2024) Beginning the Treatment on a Personal Note: Creating Emotional Connection, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 93:4, 647-674, DOI: 0.1080/00332828.2024.2398590

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this presentation participants will be able:

1. To learn that while a strong frame is important, it also needs to handle emotional storms.
2. An analysis without “trouble”, without resistance, is missing something. Attendees will be encouraged to use breaches in the setting as opportunities for reflection on the patient’s reservations about certain aspects of his or her commitment to analysis.
3. To consider the analytic offer as an identificatory project.

Allannah Furlong, PhD

Allannah Furlong, PhD, psychologist and psychoanalyst, is a member of the Société psychanalytique de Montréal and a former recipient of the JAPA Prize for excellence in psychoanalytic scholarship. She has written on different aspects of the psychoanalytic framework, such as informed consent and confidentiality, as well as articles on dehumanization as a defense, the temporality of love sickness, the need to be caused, and the primal interpretative response. She has also coedited two interdisciplinary-nary books on confidentiality. Her current research studies the invention of a new subject via the complex messages of parental baby talk.