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symbolic action, and in particular as language action within the transference force- field” (ibid, pp. 272-273). In the more reflective phases, on the other hand, the patient's distance from himself and the analyst gains ascendancy. What was re-enactment, by reflection changes to that more objective repetition which Freud has called reproduction in the psychical field, as opposed to reproduction by action…There are those phases in analysis when narrative and reflection are drawn into and yield to the force-field of transference re-enactment. And there are those other phases, not infrequently in the same hour, when re-enactment is drawn into and yields to the force-field of objectifying narrative and reflection. To hold to an optimal balance and to keep channels of communication open between these two is part of the analyst's art” (ibid, p. 296). Fredric Busch (1997) views the patient's free associations “…as a complex organic unity which, without undue interference by the analyst, will express the various components of the conflicts that have led the patient to treatment.” (Bush 1997, p. 409). Accordingly, the mode of listening to and interpreting the patient's free associations include the patient's ego as a major determinant as regards both the meaning of the associations and the patient's ability to accept and understand the interpretations. According to this author, this approach fosters the development of a capacity for self-analysis, and structural changes in the ego. Busch (2009) further develops Loewald’s thinking on the usage of words, noting that at the time when early conflicts develop, a child’s thinking is dominated by action concepts. He goes on to describe a method of working psychoanalytically with language action based upon: the use of countertransference in understanding action language, the importance of changing actions into representations, and the emphasis on the process rather than the content . Kris’ and Busch’ views of the method of free association were very close to the perspective of French psychoanalytic tradition, influential in French Canada as described by Jean-Luc Donnet (2010) who states, “Thus in accordance with the project of an analytic cure, the method consists in carefully creating the conditions in which free association proves to be practical, interpretable and beneficial” (p.156). Using the patient’s associations, or lack thereof, as a guide, the analyst’s interpretations became a way of building complex representations leading to the possibility of replacing the inevitability of action with the possibility of reflection. Arnold Modell (2009), who considers metaphor a currency of emotional mind central to communication and interpretation of unconscious meaning, sees Freud’s (1912) construction of the psychoanalytic setting, promoting ambiguity, and particularly his recommendation of free association together with the analyst’s evenly suspended attention as fostering expression of metaphor. Linda Brakel (1993) advocates for the broadening of free associative channels to include both pictorial and verbal modes to increase clinical understanding and “access to the period of life where experience is more visually dominated” (p. 359). Building on the history of the psychoanalytic use of drawing, and on her own clinical experience with patients who
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