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V. C. FREE ASSOCIATION AS CENTRAL TO PSYCHOANALYTIC WORK V. Ca. Free Association and its Formulation Similarly as in North America (Lichtenberg and Galler 1987 above), there has been a survey related to free association in Latin America, too. Qualitative analysis of the survey among members and candidates of the Columbian Psychoanalytic Society (Laverde and Bayona 2011) revealed that analysts differ in their formulation of free association, and they do they agree on the explicit instructions to the patient. Some describe it in detail asking patients to communicate their thoughts, memories, sensations, experiences, dreams, imaginations, without discriminating whether it is embarrassing, inappropriate or ridiculous. As for the timing, some analysts make it explicit at the end of the initial interview, others when the patient is lying on the couch, and finally some analysts introduce it in general terms at the beginning and then detail the instruction as the work proceeds. The authors of the survey conclude that although the fundamental rule does not make explicit any restrictions on action, the setting and the patient's lying position imply that verbal is the preferred communication. In terms of the child analytic practice, however, the Kleinian legacy seems to prevail, as the respondents assert that the equivalent of the ground rule in child psychoanalysis is the emphasis on play and drawing (see also separate entry OBJECT RELATIONS THEORIES). V. Cb. The ‘Fundamental Rule’ Formulation and ‘Enforcement’ Based on number of contemporary reports of Ana Matia Chabalgoity and de Souza Brito (2019) and others (Laverde, Bayona and Barios 2011, Laverde and Bayona 2012; Lapaco and Laverde 2012), Latin American analysts underscore that, starting with Freud, analysts have reflected how the Fundamental Rule is continuously violated, at least during some periods or sessions, with silence or concealment of the contents of thought, as an expression of resistance, or in an attempt to preserve to preserve privacy and self-styled conscious identity. Patients’ responses to the instruction for free associations ranges from obsessive listing of minute detail of what is happening in the environment to responses of patients with early traumas, which could not be registered as a thought but as an action or experience, who cannot verbally associate what had not been so registered and verbally represented on the first place. Recognizing wide range of what should be considered free association, Laverde and Bayona (2011, 2012) include any discourse of the patient between ‘the fantastic’ and ‘the real’, contents of past, present and expectations of a future, references to what happens in the analyst- patient bond as well as the relations with the social and family environment. In its course, pauses may appear, which may correspond to reflections by the analysand, not to be confused with silences of resistance. In addition, in order for the free associative activity to reveal the unconscious functioning, Laverde and Bayona (2012) believe that other factors must coincide: 1- use of the couch, and therefore no direct visual contact 2- intimate and private environment of the analytical office, isolated from visual and sound stimuli of the environment, 3- confidentiality
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