Concept
Fundamental rule
The rule the patient accepts at the start of an analysis: to communicate everything that comes to mind, leaving nothing out because it seems unimportant, irrelevant, embarrassing or disagreeable. Freud named it the psychoanalytic fundamental rule in his papers on technique of 1912–13. It turns the method of free association into an obligation of the treatment, and its breaches, the silences and omissions, become signs of resistance. On the analyst's side its counterpart is evenly suspended attention.
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 2
- Related
- Free association
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1912 Calls the obligation to communicate everything that comes to mind, without criticism, the 'psychoanalytic fundamental rule'. He observes that a patient caught in transference resistance takes the liberty of neglecting it.
derives from
- Free association 1912 The fundamental rule states the method of free association as the obligation the patient accepts: to say everything that comes to mind, without criticism. Ferenczi and Rank speak of the technical 'fundamental rule' of free association.