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In recent years, problems connected with variations of technique have aroused a great deal of interest among analysts. This may partly be due to the appearance of interesting modifications of psycho-analytic technique that have created considerable controversy and thus led, in turn, to renewed study of the base of classical technique. (Of the many authors who have dealt with the subject, only a few will be specifically cited here.) Moreover, this revival of interest is influenced by the 'widening scope' of the application of psycho-analysis, as well as by the increasing use of analytically oriented psychotherapy. Thus the need for a scrutiny of the rationale of all such techniques has become more acute.
However, my discussion does not concern different types of psychotherapy, nor will it deal with proposed modifications of our technique.2 It will remain within the framework of what is usually called the classical or standard technique, as applied to psychoneuroses and related characterological disorders, to sexual perversions and to conditions which, for want of a better term, may be described as disturbed reactions to complicated life situations.
At this point, I might be expected to define the classical analytic technique and to delimit it from related therapeutic procedures. I shall refrain from this because I do not know any fool-proof definition of classical analysis. It would evidently have to be based on the importance we ascribe to the analytic way of dealing with resistance, transference, transference neuroses, and working through (A. Freud, 8); (Greenacre, 12); (Stone, 26). Such a definition is necessary at times, particularly for pedagogical and polemic purposes. However, I shall take the essentials of classical analytic technique for granted. I shall also take for granted that in some areas considerable disagreement may exist among analysts as to whether a technical procedure should be called classical or not.
A few years ago Anna Freud (8), in a