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The application of the ‘rule’/’condition’ thus facilitates the emergence of communication through which unconscious determinism may become accessible, thereby exposing and fostering fresh (previously hidden, repressed or traumatically dissociated) connections as well as revealing difficulties in mental discourse. Adjusting for individualized criteria regarding the analyst and the analysand, the contemporary instruction to the patient in explaining the ‘fundamental rule/condition’ of ‘free association’ may include an invitation to “try to say whatever comes to mind, in whatever form that occurs, whether this includes thoughts, fantasies, observations, memories, etc., without attempting to order all these contents in any way…regardless of whether that seems easy or difficult,…to be proud of or ashamed about,…important or trivial, etc.” (Kernberg 2015, p.627). The instructions may also include an acknowledgement that the inevitable difficulties experienced in the process “provide an opportunity for analytic exploration” (Lichtenberg and Galler 1987, p.72). Similarly, European psychoanalytic dictionaries acknowledge "free association" as a still current-day procedure, fundamental to the method of psychoanalysis, consisting of inviting the patient (albeit in various ways) to communicate whatever comes to mind. Laplanche and Pontalis (1967/73) carries two separate entries: 1. The entry ‘Free Association’, broadly defined as encompassing the expression of thoughts which are triggered by a given stimulus (such as a word, dream image, or psychic representation) as well as those which emerge spontaneously; 2. The entry ‘Fundamental Rule’, which describes the free association method as the basic principle structuring the psychoanalytic situation and relationship. Between the two entries, there is the differentiation between the broad concept of ‘free association as a mental activity’ and free association employed as the ‘fundamental rule’, structuring the psychoanalytic situation, similar to North American dictionaries. Skelton (2006) devotes one paragraph to Free Association, narrowly defined as “The patient’s attempt to follow the ‘so called’ fundamental rule of spontaneously verbalizing whatever comes to mind in the psychoanalytic situation without selective editing or suppression of what is presumed to be irrelevant, or important or is felt to be distressing” (Skelton 2006, p. 178). Mijolla (2005) presents ‘free association’ and its employment in psychoanalytic treatment as a ‘fundamental rule’, both utilizing Freud's deterministic concept of interconnectedness of psychic phenomena (p. 615), emphasizing that free association involves the patient freely expressing whatever thoughts arise without selective filtering or censorship. Overall, European definitions of free associations can be summarised thusly: 1) accessing free, (relatively) uncensored thoughts; 2) expressing them, verbalising them or communicating them (different words depending on the dictionary) ; and 3) recognizing that the direction of these thoughts is subject to the unconscious determinism of psychic phenomena.
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