Hello aspirant,

Hope you are doing well,

Sigmund Freud was in the process of developing free association from 1892 to 1898. He planned on using it as a new method for exploring the unconsious. Freud claimed free association gave people in therapy complete freedom to examine their thoughts. This freedom would come, in part, from a lack of prompting or intervention by a therapist. Freud proposed the technique helped prevent three common issues in therapy:

1. Transference. The process of transferring (https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/transference) feelings one has for one person to a different person.
2. Projection. The process of projecting (https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/projection) one’s own qualities onto someone else.
3. Resistance. The practice of blocking out certain feelings or memories (https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/memory) .

Hope this information helps,

Good luck