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The psychoanalytic milieu ward here discussed is at a general hospital in Los Angeles. The patients are hospitalized for serious self-destructive behavior, aggression, or withdrawal. The analyst uses observations made by nurses or others in his confrontations and interpretations to the patient. Thus the ward becomes an extended analytic situation and ward behavior in its entirety comes under analytic scrutiny. Under these conditions a regressive ward transference neurosis develops with the ward community becoming the setting for the re-enactment of the family neurosis. Restrictions (on-the-ward visits, trips, phone calls, etc.) are discussed in terms of limit-setting. The application of the setting of limits is seen as an extension of the rule of abstinence. The abstinence rule on the ward is taken to refer to the psychoanalyst and the staff thwarting the gratification of certain dangerous, self-harming, and destructive infantile desires of the patient. This setting of limits with restriction of the patient's autonomy, in return for the institution and treatment, should be distinguished from 'other active procedures' (medications, extra appointments, phone calls to the analyst) which extend the patient's autonomy at the expense of that of the analyst.