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ERNEST S. WOLF INTRODUCED THE PANEL by stating that his initial interest in analysts' neutrality was nourished by growing recognition that failed neutrality or inappropriate neutrality were the most important contributors to his analytic failures, and he acknowledged the help of discussions with Heinz Kohut in formulating his own ideas on analytic ambience.
Wolf remarked on his astonishment in finding that the term "neutrality" is neither in the Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, nor in the index of the Standard Edition or the Gesammelte Werke. He turned to The Language of Psychoanalysis, by LaPlanche and Pontalis, and read their definition:
One of the defining characteristics of the attitude of the analyst during the treatment. The analyst must be neutral in respect of religious, ethical and social values—that is to say, he must not direct the treatment according to some ideal, and should abstain from counselling the patient; he must be neutral too as regards manifestations of transference (this rule usually being expressed by the maxim, 'Do not play the patient's game'); finally, he must