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This book, by a member of a distinguished psychoanalytic family, purports to deal with the phenomenon of free association for the purpose of using it to derive theoretical formulations about patients and their diverse psychopathologies.
Dr. Kris says in his preface that “There is very little of anything original in the observations I offer,” and I whole-heartedly agree with him. The book is full of platitudes (such as “Psychoanalysis does not create free association, …” “Psychoanalysts naturally think of treatment as a process, or, more accurately, as a number of processes”; “The method of free association, as I have come to formulate it for myself, is a joint venture that patient and analyst undertake in the service of the patient's therapeutic goals”; “Among the formulations of psychoanalytic process, those that focus on psychological development hold an especially important position.”). As we all know, platitudes are not proper substitutes for logic, analysis, and reasoned argument in support of one's propositions.
The author believes that, by resort to his methodology, theoretical differences between psychoanalysts can be greatly reduced, or even eliminated, because formulations derived from the free associations of patients will necessarily be experience-near rather than experience-distant.
Dr. Kris sees the analyst's role as that of a facilitator of the patient's free association and not as a promoter of insight. Although he disclaims the intent, he wants to reinterpret psychopathological states as, at least in part, being consequences of what he calls “significant limitations in freedom of association.” He sees “the promotion of continuity” as the main goal.
Unfortunately, the 13 individual chapters of the book do not have much to do directly with free association, and deal with other topics instead, such as obsessive ambivalence, or perversions, or differences between formal analysis and analytically oriented psychotherapy. One chapter even contains a synoptic r