How to conduct the method of free association?

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

The method of free association has been widely used in psychology for quite a long time. Its author is one of the most famous and scandalous psychoanalysts in history, Sigmund Freud. It was he who proposed this method and used it throughout his career, passed it on to his students and included it in the so-called psychoanalysis, thanks to which he gained his fame. If you want to learn more about the free association method, what it is and what it is used for, then this article is for you.

Sigmund Freud

If we talk about the method of free associations, then it is necessary to mention the one who introduced this method, namely Sigmund Freud. He lived and worked in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in the Austrian Empire in the city of Freiberg, which at the moment belongs to the Czech Republic. He made a huge contribution to psychology, and his works are still used and appreciated, studied at universities and applied in practice, although not as actively as before. He founded the three-component structure of the psyche, introducing the concepts of "I", "it" and "super-I". It was Freud who told the world about the psychosexual phases of human development, he describedprotective mechanisms of the human psyche and much more, which as a result developed into a full-fledged psychological and psychiatric direction, which was called "Freudianism". And it is within the framework of Freudianism that the so-called psychoanalysis exists, which shook the world of psychology and psychiatry in its time. Its key component is the method of free association, so one cannot talk about it without talking directly about psychoanalysis in general.

What is psychoanalysis?

So, what is the place of free association method in psychoanalysis? Freud based his activities precisely on this method. Therefore, we can safely say that it is fundamental to psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis is a branch of psychology founded by Sigmund Freud. He believed that each person's psyche is divided into conscious and unconscious. And psychoanalysis, unlike all other areas, was focused on working with the unconscious. This meant that studying the patient's situation, helping him, his treatment was carried out using not the most traditional methods, which even included the interpretation of dreams. Over time, of course, these methods became generally accepted, and the method of free association, examples of which will be discussed below, generally became one of the leading methods in psychology and psychiatry.

What is this method?

The method of free association in psychoanalysis, as you already understood, occupies the leadingplace and plays an important role. But what does he represent? As mentioned earlier, Freud's psychoanalysis is directed at the unconscious in the human psyche, and it is on the basis of this that this method works. Its essence lies in the fact that the psychoanalyst does not try to work with the patient's rational thoughts and ideas, he tries to get to the very depths, to the point that the person's consciousness is trying to hide from everyone around him and even from himself. But how exactly does it work? How to get to that secret place in the human psyche? Free word association is the ideal tool for getting exactly what the psychoanalyst needs.

How is this method carried out?

So, the essence of the method is that the psychoanalyst allows his patient to say absolutely everything that comes to his mind. He does not ask leading questions and does not try to find out something specific. He does not ask to restrain any emotions - the patient can and should tell everything that comes to his mind, even the most obscene and vulgar things. The psychoanalyst's job is to listen to the patient, write down everything that flows out of the patient's stream of consciousness, and then justify the name of his profession, that is, analyze the information received. At first glance, this may seem a bit absurd - what can be learned from a verbal flow that is not limited by anything? However, in reality, everything is not as simple as it might seem. Freud would not have become so famous if it had been a normal stream of consciousness, butnothing more.

Working with the unconscious

So what is the secret that makes free association so popular and effective? The interpretation of information received from the patient is not a search for a grain of common sense in the stream of delirium, as it seems to many. In fact, Sigmund Freud believed that the division of the psyche into conscious and unconscious exists in every person, and psychoanalysts until that time turned only to the conscious. This means that they asked their patients logical questions to which they consciously gave logical answers. However, at the same time, consciousness did not allow the deepest problems to come out - no one consciously wanted to admit to them, and often even could not, because they did not suspect their existence, since consciousness reliably protected them. How is the free association method different? The thing is that this method removed all the limitations of consciousness - the patient was forbidden to think about what he was saying, try to weigh words, filter ideas. He had to say absolutely everything that came into his head. It was through this that the path was made to the most hidden problems in the depths of the subconscious, which the patient did not want or even could not tell his psychoanalyst when he was asked directly or indirectly, that is, referring to his conscious, and not his unconscious.

Not free associations

Despite the fact that this method is called that way, Freud himselfdid not consider associations specifically "free". He was of the opinion that they were all controlled by a subconscious process. And thanks to this method, the patient's consciousness can no longer hold back everything that was hidden in its depths. It skips this information, since it often comes not in a direct, but in a symbolic form - this is where an experienced psychoanalyst comes into play, who must decipher the received symbols.

Interpretation

Interpretation is no less important tool of psychoanalysis than free association. Without it, this method will not work, since the psychoanalyst will simply be left with a stream of consciousness written down on paper. Interpretation is the process of psychoanalysis by which word associations are deciphered and take on the form of the essence of the problem that the patient was unconsciously trying to convey. And that's when you can already work on its solution. As you can see, Freud's psychoanalysis turned out to be a real breakthrough in psychology and psychiatry, allowing people to get to the most intimate problems that they could not express consciously. Only with the help of the unconscious was it possible to get to the bottom, and that is why Freud's psychoanalysis became so popular and entered into all textbooks on psychology, psychoanalysis and even psycholinguistics.

Example of using the method

So, a session of psychoanalysis using the method of free association is as follows: the patient lies down on the couch, and the psychoanalyst sits on a chair near his head. ATIn most cases, the patient cannot see the analyst or sees only a small part of him. This is done so that nothing distracts him from a kind of rendezvous with the unconscious. The psychoanalyst does not ask direct questions, as in a standard session - he only helps the patient dive into the stream of the unconscious in order to get to the core of the problem, which is hidden due to the protective mechanism of consciousness. As a result, the psychoanalyst receives information that most often comes not in the form of a direct text, but symbolically. Then he, as a professional psychoanalyst, uses his skills to read the essence of the problem in the images received and help the patient solve it.

Other types of free association method

However, not only Freud used this method, other scientists also applied it in their practice. One of the most famous among them was Carl Gustav Jung. He also had his own psychoanalysis - now it is even customary to divide psychoanalysis into Freudian and Jungian. However, Jung used the method of free associations a little differently - he placed more emphasis on the fact that associations are free, while Freud himself recognized their non-freeness, subordination to the general process, and he himself concentrated directly on associations. But both of these approaches proved to be incredibly successful and eventually became world famous.