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Volume 11, Number 1
January - June 2007


Il lavoro dell'astinenza
(Abstinence in the working-through)
Cinzia Lucantoni

SUMMARY

In the first part of her article, the Author underlines the role that the abstinence principle played in the making of psychoanalytic thinking and the vicissitudes it followed during time. Her remarks invite us to re-consider abstinence in the light of some conceptual elaborations which were established later such as setting, countertransference and role responsiveness. The Author aims to enrich the meaning of the abstinence rule and to re-value its potentiality in a period when, in fact, in some psychoanalytic circles abstinence, neutrality and anonymity of the analyst are under discussion. A clinical case illustrates its complex connections with other parameters and shows the open issues the abstinence principle still poses. Giving it back its complexity, we can value not only its role as a negative rule (what should not be done) but also the precious part abstinence plays in the working-through process of the analytic couple.