Associations are tricky!! I really used to love a song, now it just reminds me of something which I will gain nothing remembering :p
And, so I ended up on the wiki for Free associations.
Free association is a technique used in Freudian Psychoanalysis, it is also called Psychodynamic theory and was developed by Freud's coworker Josef Breuer.
Patients are encouraged to just say whatever comes to their mind, without feelings of guilt, shame and other such restraining emotions. It is based on the premise that people have a desire to learn about themselves at the same time they have a fear of self-exposure and hence have built up defenses.
The goal of Free associations isn't to unearth something ground shattering but to have a journey of co-discovery where the patient ends up gaining an integration of thought, feeling, agency, and selfhood.
Basically what I got from that is you discover yourself with somebody else, it might help in allaying fears of self-exposure and exploring areas you might have avoided otherwise. And the final objective is to be able to understand your own pscyhe and get a better perspective of yourself.
The purpose of Free associations is to find unconscious motives which might be hidden due to :
- Transference : The thing where you transfering emotions for one to another, e.g.Thinking because your boyfriend has six-packs and talks with a stuttering voice he is SRK from Om Shanti Om ... worst example ever right!! I know .... :p
- Projection : Projecting your internal feelings or motives to others. The part where because you are horny, angry or anything else, you take everyone else to be too :)
- Resistance : Holding a mental block to something. Do I really need to give an example of how you said your running away from the stage was a result of strong wind and not being scared of the people watching you :p
