You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Psychoanalytic literature devoted to free association is somewhat limited even though the fundamental rule is central to the practice of psychoanalysis. Some suggestions will be made in this paper to show its importance for theory as well. Zilboorg (1952) says: 'The whole problem of free association and of the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis (I mean the deeper psychological implications rather than the pragmatic and utilitarian significance of the method) has been given very little attention by psychoanalysts themselves.'
From his historical research, Zilboorg (1952)concludes that Francis Galton was the true inventor of free association. His quotations from Galton's paper are indeed impressive. Galton was well aware of resistance and likewise aware of the discovery of unsuspected ideas and passions through free association—ideas and passions which would otherwise have remained unknown. Galton's paper on the subject appeared in the journal, Brain in 1879. Zilboorg notes that Freud read Brain, but that we do not know whether he had read Galton's paper.
According to Wexler (1971), Borne's 'The Art of Becoming an Original Writer in Three Days' played a part in leading Freud toward free association. The British school of associationist psychology may also have stimulated Freud in this direction. His interest in J. S. Mill and his translation of Mill's essay on liberty may have led him to a knowledge of associationism. A number of Freud's parenthetical comments on dream interpretation also suggest that he might have been led to free association by his clinical experiences when attempting to understand dreams. Patients falling silent and rationalizing their refusal to mention certain thoughts (irrelevance, etc.) may have gradually led him to the fundamental rule.
Hartmann (1927) made some trenchant comments on free association which will be referred to in detail later on. Anna Freud (1936)makes the important theoretical point that 'what concerns us is not simpl