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One is never more alone than in the presence of another.
I have found it very difficult to gather material on free association and present an orderly account of it, for the pertinent psychoanalytic literature frequently consists of random comments, free associations about free associations, in a sense. Given Freud's readiness to say that for many people the technique of free association was “the most important contribution made by psychoanalysis” (1931, p. 403),1 it becomes all the more surprising that, relative to every other psychoanalytic topic, there are so few sustained studies of free association. This topic presents many pitfalls and little comfortable terrain to the probing adventurer. In any treatment