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Expanding on, among others, interpersonalists Karen Horney (1952/1987) and Phillip Broomberg’s (1984) embrace of free association, Aron also cites interpersonal implications in statements of Freudian authors, citing Ernst Kris (1956): “While the patient is referred to free association, he has to learn to establish in his contact with the analyst at which point that which he says or thinks can still be grasped by his silent listener. It is always of crucial significance when we observe that a particular patient tends to lose this contact, that when invited to follow the pressure of thoughts and images as they impose themselves upon his mind, he retires into soliloquy and mental isolation” (p. 265). Within the context of the relational model of mind as an open system, always in interaction with others, associations are always emerging in the context of analytic interaction. Aron stated: “Mind can only be studied in the context of interaction, and the method of free association is useful only when we recognize it as one method for studying ‘mind’ in a very specific interpersonal context” (451). This approach dovetails on Aron’s previous use of free associations to dream elements (Aron 1989) with an eye on the interactive subtext of such associations. For this author, the method of free association represents a fundamental context within which the analyst struggles with the paradoxical clinical demand that he or she be open to what the patient is saying, to what is new, to surprise, while also being guided by prior experience and theoretical models. Free association then provides a methodological structure for the analyst to maintain a balance between participation and observation, and between focusing on the past, current life, and transference. It also enables patients to unite the task of exploring their inner world, the workings of their ‘mind’ with the interpersonal relation to the analyst. The method presupposes that all that the patient says can be meaningfully tied together and shown to belong to a continuum of psychic life (Aron 1990, p. 457). III. Cb. Self Psychology Approaches As critically decried by some (Balter and Spencer 1991), Hans Kohut dismissed both free association and evenly hovering attention in favor of empathy defined as acceptance. However, Paul Ornstein (1995), contemporary Self psychologist, noted that although Kohut viewed free association and resistance analysis as “auxiliary” methods to introspection and empathy, he recognized that it was Freud's discovery of free association and resistance analysis that made introspection and empathy ultimately available for scientific data gathering. Following Kohut’s “…free association and resistance analysis are yet to be considered as auxiliary instruments, employed in the service of the introspective and empathic method of observation” (Kohut 1959, pp.466), Ornstein reiterates that it is a well-accepted fact that free association loosens the repression barrier, and that resistance analysis affords a way of dealing with the inner obstacles to free and honest communication. Describing the psychoanalytic method as free association (which is the patient's contribution) and the observation of behavior (which is the analyst's contribution) is valid but no longer sufficient for a Self psychologist,
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