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Also known as freie Assoziation

Saying whatever comes to mind, without selection or censorship.

Sigmund Freud 1895 In his chapter on the psychotherapy of hysteria, Freud gives up hypnosis for concentration and the pressure of his hand, and binds the patient to report every image or idea that comes, without selection and uninfluenced by criticism or affect. In the case of Emmy von N. he records her asking him to stop asking where things came from and let her tell what she had to say.

Sigmund Freud 1905 In the preface to the Dora case, Freud writes that his technique has been transformed since the Studies: instead of tracing the symptoms one by one, he lets the patient choose the subject of each session and starts from whatever the unconscious presents on the surface. He reads hidden connections from the order in which the patient's ideas follow one another.
Sigmund Freud 1912 Ties the failure of free association to the transference: whenever the patient's associations stop, the stoppage can be removed by telling him that he is in the grip of an idea about the physician. A patient caught in transference resistance feels free to neglect the fundamental rule.

Sándor Ferenczi 1924 With Rank, Ferenczi rejects analyses that collect associations and translate them one by one, as if they were the substance of the work. Associations only show where, and how deep, the operative affects lie. An analyst who merely lets the patient associate and interprets each association reduces the analysis to an association experiment.
Otto Rank 1924 With Ferenczi, Rank rejects analyses that collect associations and translate them one by one, as if they were the substance of the work. Associations only show where, and how deep, the operative affects lie. An analyst who merely lets the patient associate and interprets each association reduces the analysis to an association experiment.