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The author points out and discusses the contrast between the process of psychoanalytic observation, which is spontaneous nondirected ideation, and the usual process of scientific observation which is concentrated directed thinking. He says 'a true psychology of psychoanalysis will therefore become possible only if and when the processes involved in free associations are fully understood'. He discusses the work of Hartmann and Anna Freud, and notes that their consideration of the problem of free association has been almost the only attention devoted to it.
He deals with Freud's choice of free association in preference to other therapeutic devices and connects this with Freud's 'humanistic individualism', which would make it seem natural to Freud to choose a method that gives to the patient a minimum of interference with his life from without and a maximum sense of having his inner life in his own hands. In the various deviations from Freud and from the use of free association, Zilboorg notes a constant antagonism to the 'unconscious'; finally free association comes to be regarded as an aggressive weapon to be used against the unconscious. Actually free association is a tool for the broadening of our consciousness and for reintegration of the ego.
Zilboorg examines the history of the interest in free association, referring to John Locke and the pervasive influence of association psychology. Galton attempted to practice free association while alone, as reported in his paper of 1879 in Brain. Whether Freud was aware of this article or not matters little. The point is that the free association method is not to be looked upon as an invention of Freud's, but rather as an embryonal tendency in the history of psychology which was caught and made fertile by Freud's intuition. The more significant and original Freud's work appears, the more does it seem a link in