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IV. A. BRITISH OBJECT RELATIONS TRADITION In Winnicott’s and Milner’s Independent Tradition, Charles Rycroft (1968) focuses on the the German term used by Freud, freier Einfall means ‘irruption’ or ‘sudden idea’, rather than “association”, and the concept refers “to ideas which occur to one spontaneously, without straining” (1968, p. 59). If the term association has been accepted, it is in reference to unconscious connections lying beneath the material brought by the patient. However, the patient does not bring these connections directly in the spontaneous material; they can only be apparent to the analyst through his interpretations or to the patient when he develops the capacity to perceive them. Rycroft posits that the free association technique relies on: a) all lines of [patient’s] thoughts tend to lead to what is significant, b) that the patient’s therapeutic needs and knowledge that he is in treatment will lead his associations towards what is significant except so far as resistance operates; and c) that resistance is minimized by relaxation and maximized by concentration. (Rycroft, 1968, pp. 59- 60). He considers an over- simplification to base psychoanalytic technique only on free association. Because a) after the analyst's interpretation, the patient's utterances will be associations to these interventions, and therefore not free. And b), “the analyst’s interventions compel the patient to scan his free associations in identification with the analyst, i.e. the patient does two things at once […]: free association and reflection”. In other words, “the patient oscillates between being the subject and the object of his experience” (Rycroft, 1968: 60). This idea may help explain something shared by many authors, that the ability to associate freely can only develop over the course of the analytic process. In short, the patient's spontaneous expression is progressively joined by his capacity to reflect on what is said. So, strictly speaking if one takes Freud’s definition of the fundamental rule: “say whatever comes into your head, without restriction”, it means that when the patient speaks, their utterances are without immediate connection, or conscious “association” with each other. It is the analyst who, through specific listening and observation, will detect whether there exist connections or associations beneath the manifest material brought by the patient. Moreover, the mandate “say whatever comes into your head” is broad enough to include even moments of silence. It need not necessarily be understood as “you have to talk”, although generally the patient takes it as such. Rycroft further argues, as Freud had already pointed out, that free association is not truly an association but rather a spontaneous irruption, nor is it entirely free, because it is determined by several factors. Thus, the fundamental rule analysts ask the patient to follow is an impossible task, as it is more of an ideal goal to be gradually achieved, to some extent during the analytical process. British Object Relations theory thus stresses that for Freud both the free association of the patient and the analyst’s ‘free floating attention’ constitute the Fundamental Rule. In Freud's work, it is free association that is most developed, for it was this that constituted the
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