ABSTRACT
In recent years the issue of abstinence during psychoanalytic therapy has become "a buzz word" which evokes intense emotional responses both from clinicians and theoreticians in discussions of technique. This response is partly in reaction to observation and experience in working with patients included in "the widening scope of psychoanalysis". Partly as a result of this, a variety of technical descriptions offered in the literature have emphasized the cognitive, intellectual, interpretative, content-oriented interventions made by the analyst, and deemphasized or ignored completely the humanistic, personal, idiosyncratic, and experiential components of the analytic process. Stone emphasized that the application of psychoanalysis to the treatment of more difficult and primitive cases required a loosening of the rigid attitudes of abstinence in order to allow and encourage such patients to participate in the treatment process. Psychoanalysis can be conceptualized as an unfolding process, implying change and goal-oriented direction over time.
