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Further, Freud (1937), focusing on the notion of psychic reality, explored the importance of an affectively laden flow of free associations not only in formulating interpretations, but also in response to complex analytic reconstructions and/or constructions. In “An Outline to Psychoanalysis”, Freud (1938/40) described the fundamental rule as one of the structuring elements of the analytic situation in the context of a collaborative ‘analytic pact’, a forerunner to the later concept of ‘working alliance’ (Greenson 1967): “The position is like that in a civil war which has to be decided by the assistance of an ally from outside. The analytic physician and the patient's weakened ego, basing themselves on the real external world, have to band themselves together into a party against the enemies, the instinctual demands of the id and the conscientious demands of the super-ego. We form a pact with each other. The sick ego promises us the most complete candor—promises, that is, to put at our disposal all the material which its self- perception yields it; we assure the patient of the strictest discretion and place at his service our experience in interpreting material that has been influenced by the unconscious. Our knowledge is… to give his ego back its mastery over lost provinces of his mental life. This pact constitutes the analytic situation” (Freud 1938, p.173). This set the stage not only for delimiting the suitability of the psychoanalytic method for non-psychotic individuals, but also for an unfolding of the psychoanalytic process as a collaborative endeavor with a therapeutic objective of instilling adaptive ‘ego alterations’, with many challenges throughout. II. C. SANDOR FERENCZI and OTTO RANK In various ways, both Ferenczi and Rank (Ferenczi 1919/1980, 1920/1980, 1921/1980, 1924/1980; Ferenczi and Rank 1924), who theorized on, and worked clinically with traumatized patients of a broad diagnostic range, countered the relative expressive passivity of Freud’s method of free associations with an ‘active technique’, consisting of active interventions on the part of the analyst. The technique included: 1. Injunctions, whereby the repressed impulses were converted into manifest actions; 2. Prohibitions, whereby once the repressed impulse was converted into action, the action was stopped; 3. Setting a deadline for termination, with the purpose of facilitating mourning of unachievable instinctual goals. Although Ferenczi (1925/1980) later abandoned the active technique, the echo of the Freud-Ferenczi controversy in employing free association reverberates in the contemporary discussions of psychoanalytic technique, including the issue of central versus peripheral position of free association in psychoanalytic clinical methodology. In the Freud-Ferenczi Correspondence in a letter of December 1929, Ferenczi opens his heart after the estrangement and writes that "now I do feel free". He also starts formulating his thinking about technique. In the Clinical Diary (Ferenczi 1932), he further develops his thoughts about psychoanalytic technique, stating, “…certain too rigorous measures have to be softened without losing sight of the collateral educational purpose" (1932, p. 15).
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