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defenses and resistances, it contributed to, and its use was further enriched by, the elaboration of Topographic and later Structural Models of the mind. The role of free association in the formulation of an interpretation of the forces in conflict was subsequently expanded to working through defenses and resistances (Freud 1914, 1926, 1937) and understanding the meaning of dreams. Diverse evolving formulations of the concept throughout Freud’s oeuvre, put in a context of the overall evolution of his psychoanalytic theory, are detailed below. II. Ba. Free Associations in the Time of the Discovery of the Dynamic Unconscious: Beginning of the Method While Freud appears to have first publicly exemplified free associative processes in his Interpretation of Dreams and in “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” (Freud 1901). Masson (in: Freud 1988), in his notes on Freud’s letter to Fliess dated Feb 4, 1888 (Freud, 1888), states that Freud may have begun using rudiments of associative technique dating back to 1892, during the early period of his discovery of the dynamic unconscious. Psychoanalysis was born with Freud’s revolutionary discovery of the dynamic function of defense in the etiology of hysteria. The defense against remembering (repression) clued Freud into the importance of resistance, “…a psychical force in the patients which was opposed to the pathogenic ideas becoming conscious (being remembered)” (Freud 1893b, p. 268). This force of resistance, Freud theorized, countered the upward force of rejected pathogenic material. Symptoms were the result of the failure of repression; that is to say, the return of the repressed. Simultaneously, “the affect that is torn from it [the repressed idea,] would be used for a somatic innervation" (ibid, p 285) appearing as a hysterical conversion into a bodily symptom. The innovative psychoanalytic method of free association developed out of the realization that " it is quite hopeless to try to penetrate directly to the nucleus of the pathogenic organization " (ibid, p 292, original emphasis), alien to the ego (ibid, p 290). It was the free talking of J. Breuer's patient Anna O, (Freud [with Breuer] 1893-1895) which she called “chimney sweeping”, that brought her relief from her distress. The questioning of his patients by pressing them on the forehead in Freud's pre-analytic work in 1888, was gradually replaced by free association (Freud [with Breuer] 1893-1895, p. 26). In “Case Histories from the Studies of Hysteria”, reporting on Frau Emmy von N., Freud (1893a) stated that during the massage sessions, “the patient had adopted my procedure and was making use of our conversation, apparently unconstrained and guided by chance, as a supplement to her hypnosis.” (ibid, p. 56). According to Strachey’s footnote, “This is perhaps the earliest appearance of what later became the method of free association” (ibid, p. 56, n.1). Describing the work with this patient., Freud’s struggle in developing the method of free association is palpable. Initially surprised that the transitions in his patient's narrative were meaningful and apparently connected to her symptoms, he learned to modify his technique ‘the
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