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An essential feature of the technique of [[psychoanalysis]], gradually developed by [[Freud]] between 1892 and 1898.
Its origins are descrinbd in 'On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement' and 'Two Encyclopedia Articles' which describe the technique itself.
The rule of free association states that a [[patient]] in [[analysis]] (or [[analysand]]) must verbally express whatever comes into his or her mind during the session, telling all and omitting nothing.
A corresponding rule requires the [[analyst]] to listen to all the verbal associations made by the [[patient]], giving no particular importance to anyhting but paying attention to everything.
The [[analyst]] must listen with 'evenly suspended or poised attention.'
The function of both rules is to prevent the [[conscious]] mind from [[censorship|censoring]] or blocking the process of [[interpretation]].
Free association (considered the "fundamental rule") is the method used in psychoanalytic treatment. In free association the patient says whatever comes to mind without exercising any selectivity or censorship. It is based on Freud's deterministic concept of psychic phenomena: "We start, as you see, on the assumption, which he does not share in the least, that these spontaneous thoughts will not be arbitrarily chosen but will be determined by their relation to his secret—to his 'complex'—and may, as it were, be regarded as derivatives of that complex" (1906c, p. 108-109). The origin of this new method of therapy can be dated from Emmy von N's irritation with Freud for interrupting her when she spoke. The method was not codified until later and would become the keystone of the technique of psychoanalytic treatment. There is no mention of this in the Studies on Hysteria. At that time a pressure on the forehead was intended to bring forth an idea or an image with the help of which the cathartic method could be exercised.
